Bee & Strawberry
by JoetheGrim
Summary: Suì-Fēng is the one that patrols Karakura on that fateful day and she ends up giving Ichigo her powers, how does the story change with the actors?
1. Bee and Strawberry

**Bee and Strawberry**

_**#Look up at the light of the stars in the night sky above#**_

* * *

It was a desert, a dark desert with only a crescent moon above to light the way.

Name of that desert was Hueco Mundo, the land where abominations of the soul live, eternally trying to find ways of tormenting helpless humans.

Two such abominations appeared from the shadows, and soon disappeared into the air, leaving for the world of humans.

_We have no form, therefore we fear it._

They arrived at a riverbank, crashing down on the ground with ease. It was night and the city they were in was called Karakura, an uninteresting place, not much different from other cities of its size.

_And because we are formless we revere it._

As opposed to Hollows, the beings that exist to kill and torment humans, Shinigami exist to protect humans and kill Hollows.

_Thus we are slain._

One such being was now observing the city from a telephone pole. It was a short woman with dark hair.

"These should do as a challenge." she said quietly to herself and jumped towards the next pole.

* * *

"The hell do you think y'er doin' ! You kick Yama-chin down and then tell US to get out of the way?" It was a generic group of thugs, dressed in baggy clothes with rugged looks, they were commonplace in the area; most of them were attention-seeking teens.

On the other hand the one they were talking to was not too different from them, he was tall, ginger and had a school uniform on. The street was empty; there wasn't anyone watching, at least that's what the thugs thought.

"You little..." the thug went forward, rearing his fist to attack, but he didn't get far, mainly because of the foot that was now placed firmly on his face. He fell, at which point the uniformed boy started kicking him rhythmically.

"This is messed up!" one of the remaining thugs proclaimed, after all, seeing this kid beating their friend and Boss with no effort was disconcerting to say the least.

"Quit yappin' and look at that! Which one of you can tell me what that is?" the boy now stopped beating the helpless thug and pointed at a small bottle with some water and flowers in it, it was tipped over.

"First question: what is that? Yes, you in the middle!" he continued pointing to the middle thug this time.

"Uh, Um... It's the tribute... for the kid that died here recently..." he was shaking and cowering as he answered the question.

"CORRECT!" the ginger now yelled as he knocked over the thug with his foot to the thugs chin.

"Second question: why did the bottle fall over?" this time he didn't point to either of the two left standing.

"Well, we were skateboarding and we knocked it over... on accident."

"Bastards! I dare you to do that again!" He now knocked the two over with a flurry of punches.

"I'll make it so that people have to lay flowers for you!" His face seemed like it was on fire, greatly increasing the effect on the thugs. The ones who could still walk picked up the ones that couldn't and they were away in a blink of an eye.

"They're terrified, they probably won't come back here anytime soon. I'll bring you some new flowers tomorrow." he said to the spirit of the kid.

He could see dead people; it wasn't something he wished for, it wasn't some experiment gone wrong, it just happened, he could see them and talk to them for as long as he could remember.

"Thank you mister, I can rest peacefully now." the young transparent girl said.

"You're welcome, now hurry up and go to heaven."

* * *

Kurosaki Ichigo, 15 years old

High school freshman

His family runs the town clinic

* * *

"I'm home." Ichigo said as he entered his home, he should have expected what would happen next, but he had other stuff on his mind, so he didn't notice his dads jumping spin-kick until it was too late.

"YOU'RE LATE!" Kurosaki Isshin yelled, knocking down his son into a heap.

"You punk of a son! You know that dinner time is at seven o'clock sharp, every night!"

"Damn you! Is that how you greet your soon who went out of his way to help a ghost on his way home!"

"I don't want to hear it! No matter what the reason is, only punishment awaits those who interrupt our family time. Or are you just bragging that you can talk to ghosts?"

They kept exchanging punches and kicks while the two girls in the room were dining.

"Shut up! I never asked for this!"

"Please stop it you two, the food is getting cold." the small blonde girl tried to make the stop from the table, but she was ignored by the men.

"It's no use Yuzu, just let them be."

"But Karin-chan."

With a preemptive kick to the face, Isshin was sent flying into a wall on the far side of the room.

"Besides, making a healthy high school student come home every night at 7 o'clock is madness..."

"Ichi-nii, you have a new friend." Karin said, not even looking at him as another ghost appeared, this time it was a middle aged business man.

"The hell? When did you... I keep exorcising but they just keep coming back!" he yelled as he flailed his arms around trying to make the ghost leave.

"I'm kind of jealous of you two, I can't see them but I can feel them sometimes." since she couldn't see the spirits but could feel them that left Isshin as the only member of the Kurosaki family that couldn't interact with ghosts.

"I don't really believe in ghosts and all that stuff anyway." was Karins cold answer.

"Forget it, I'm not hungry, I'm going to bed." Ichigo left ignoring Yuzus pleas that he should eat something.

"This is all your fault dad." Karin accused Isshin.

"What? But why!" Isshin tried making a hurt reply, but it only made him look even more childish.

"He's been having a rough time lately, he said that he's been seeing them a lot more."

"What? He tells you that sort of thing? He didn't tell me..."

"Of course not, you're over forty and act like a kid; who'd wanna talk to you about anything?" Karin was once again the one with the cold reply.

"Masaki!" Isshin stumbled towards the big poster of his late wife, "Because of puberty our daughters are being so mean lately, what do I do?"

* * *

It was morning, Ichigo was dressed for school. As he came for breakfast he saw the news. There had been an explosion nearby.

"What's wrong?" Yuzu being the motherly one of the two sisters was always worried about all of them, so she's the one that asked.

"That's nearby... where's dad?"

"He said he has a meeting and won't be back tonight."

"Oh."

* * *

His path to school led him close to the place where explosion happened and he saw the yellow tape making out the perimeter of the scene. He made a short detour to place the flowers for the girl spirit.

The girl was no longer there, but he did hear a girls scream in the distance. He ran right away to see what had happened.

When he arrived to the street he heard a loud scratching noise and saw a lot of people running away from it. A loud explosion covered the area with smoke, when it started clearing, he saw a monster unlike anything else he had seen. It was big with scythe-like arms and a body of a centipede. It had a terrifying white mask and was apparently chasing the little girl for which he had brought flowers.

They ran together away from the monster that was chasing them. But she tripped and fell.

Ichigo didn't need time to think, dead or not, this girl was the same age as his sisters, and because of that he would try and save her from that monstrosity. He wanted to just grab her and run, or if that wasn't possible throw her away so that she could run away on her own.

But he froze. He looked up at the monster as he realized that there isn't enough time. And then he saw her. A short black-haired woman, dressed in some sort of an old-fashioned uniform appeared right above the head of the monster and sliced downwards with a sword that was in her right hand.

The monster disintegrated and she landed on her feet nimbly, turned away from him without even making eye contact and disappeared from sight.

It was late evening and Ichigo was lying in his bed, still in his school uniform.

* * *

'What was that thing, why was it chasing the girl, who was that girl with the sword... so much stuff I don't understand. I don't usually care this much about stuff I don't understand but that thing was going to kill me so I think I deserve to know at least what it was...'

He turned around so that his back was facing the open window next to his bed.

And then he heard it, the same noise that he heard when that armed girl left.

And then he saw it, her crouched shadow on the floor made by the moonlight; she just appeared on his windowsill.

She jumped over his still form and landed in the middle of the room, her back towards him.

A few seconds passed as she looked over the room, still not facing him, before she placed her hand on the hilt of her sword.

Ichigo on the other hand was more than nervous, a girl just appeared in his room, a normal teenager would look at this as a gift from the heavens; but this was Ichigo, he saw her weapon and after remembering what he saw when she destroyed that monster he knew she was a skilled fighter. With her small body she would probably be quicker than him, if he had a chance to win a possible fight, it would have to be hand-to-hand.

She was standing only a few feet from him, to the side of his bed so he decided on trying a kick with his right leg to possibly stun her so he could get up from the bed.

It didn't work as he had planned, he aimed for her right shoulder since she seemed to be right handed and injuring her right arm might give him an advantage. Even from his lying position he didn't have to aim high since she was really short.

His foot made contact, but not with her right shoulder, she raised her right arm and took the blow with the back of her hand.

They were both looking at each other with surprise written all over both of their faces.

He was surprised that she managed to block him even though he was attacking from behind.

She was surprised that he attacked, or rather, that he could see and attack her at all.

In an instant he was throwing a punch with his left hand but she was already out of the reach, her hand now resting on the hilt of her sword.

She was glaring at him while he took his stance and glared back.

'He can see me in my spiritual form, and he made physical contact. He was also there today when I killed that Hollow.'

"Why did you attack me?" she kept her glare, not faltering for a bit.

"Why did you break into my room?" He kept his glare up too, although he kept switching his attention from her face, to her sword and back to her other hand.

"I didn't break anything." She let go of her sword and crossed her arms, still glaring at him.

"Who are you then, and why are you here?"

* * *

The other monster was now chasing the same girl from before, she was doing her best to run away but the giant had huge legs and would soon catch up.

* * *

"So, you're a Shinigami." both of them were now seated at a small table in the room, the tension from before barely visible in their slightly apprehensive stances.

"Yes." She acted like she was better than him, a lot better.

"And when a human soul has a lot of sorrow or regret or something like that, it turns into one of those monsters."

"Correct." She was cold and detached.

"As a Shinigami it's your job to send the pure souls to Soul Society, which is the closest thing to heaven, and defeat those monsters."

"That's right" He was taller than her even while they were sitting, but she still looked down on him.

"Alright, that's... COMPLETELY UNBELIEVEABLE! How the hell am I supposed to believe that?"

"You can see ghosts but you refuse to believe in the existence of Shinigami? That's just stupid of you."

"I've never seen a Shinigami, I don't believe in stuff I can't see."

"I'm standing right in front of you and yet you refuse to accept the truth?" She stood up as she said that.

"You might as well be sitting down, I wouldn't notice the difference, midget." She was pissed now, there was no one alive that teased her about her height, whoever tried it was already dead, she had made sure of that.

That was not to say that she hated being short, it was a very good advantage in a fight. But she hated everyone who would underestimate her only on the basis of her height.

"Bakudo no 1: Sai!" she pointed at him with her middle and index fingers making him fall under the spell.

His arms twisted behind his back, and his knees bent making him fall to the ground in front of her.

"Not so cocky now, are you?" she smirked at him, "I should probably give you a haircut too, but I feel good now; maybe I'll put that off if you stay nice."

"The hell... did you do?" He said, struggling under the effects of the spell.

"Kido, Shinigami magic. You can't move now and it will last until I release it. I would kill you but I am under orders to not kill unless needed." She was acting even more like some royalty looking at a simple peasant.

"Dammit..." He continued to struggle despite the spell firmly holding him in place.

She then drew her sword and swung downwards, making him blink in surprise when he heard a whimper from his side. The same ghost from yesterday was there with the pommel of the sword on his forehead.

"P-Please, I don't want to go to hell..." he almost cried.

"Get a hold of yourself, you're not destined to go to hell." He then disappeared and in his place was a black butterfly.

"W-what?" Ichigo gaped.

"He's going to Soul Society. I would explain it further but I am under no obligation, standing orders concerning sensitive humans are to explain the basics so that they know not to interfere in the matters of the Shinigami. Besides, I'll be in this city for the next month, so you might prove useful as a source of information."

'That's just great, this isn't the last time I'll see her...' he thought sarcastically, hoping that it would all just be over for the night and he could get some rest.

She turned to leave him,

"Wait! Why is that Hollow thing after the girl?" She turned to look at him.

"They are called hollow because of two things, first is the hole they have through their 'heart' and the second is the emptiness they feel inside, that emptiness makes them feed on human souls, dead or alive, it doesn't matter to them."

* * *

The Hollow was now catching up to the girl, she couldn't run anymore. She tripped and fell for the second time that day as the Hollow came closer. It stopped.

"I can smell... a tasty soul, and a Shinigami..." It's voice was deep and eerie, befitting a creature such as it.

"Second one is still around somewhere."

"Then hurry up and kill it."

"There's something strange hindering my senses, it might have the ability to hide itself or it could be some kind of a hidden source of power in the city."

"!" Ichigo could hear the Hollow scream and it was close to the house, the Shinigami seemingly didn't notice.

"Did you hear that!"

"Hear what?"

"The Hollow! I just heard it scream, it's close!"

"What?"

"!" She heard it this time too, and it was right in front of the house too.

She ran towards the door and opened it. She was greeted by a wave of malicious reiatsu flooding over her.

'How did I not feel THIS?'

A pair of female screams was heard from downstairs and Yuzu came from behind the corner, falling in front of Ichigos door.

"Karin-chan is... please save her..." the amount of reiatsu in the air rendered her unconscious.

"Yuzu!"

The Shinigami ignored Ichigos pleas to let him go and instead rushed downstairs to face the Hollow.

She saw the hole in the wall that the monster made to be able to take its food. The thing was big, a lot stronger than the last one, and it also had a hostage. Her thoughts were stopped when Ichigo came falling downstairs.

'How did he get here?'

"Stand back, there's nothing you can do here!"

Ichigo needed one look at his captive sister to figure out what was happening. The monster wanted to eat her soul.

The amount of willpower he had at the moment was so great that in his mind only saving his sister mattered, he forgot about the house, he forgot about the Shinigami, all he saw was the monster, his sister, and the spell holding him back.

It took him a good few seconds and some effort to break the spell with nothing but his hands, but he managed it, he took the closest thing that resembled a weapon and charged straight in.

He ignored the shouts of warning from both his sister and the shinigami as he jumped at the Hollow.

He got hit hard with a fist that sent him rolling over the pavement.

"I've found you." the hollow said to no one in particular and launched another fist towards the boy.

Ichigo dodged by rolling away from it, and the shinigami jumped into the battle, managing to place a deep slice on the arm that was holding Karin in the air. Ichigo caught her as the Hollow screamed and disappeared.

"Karin!" he didn't know what the Hollow did to her, could it have already ate her soul?

"Calm down, they're both fine."

"Really?"

"You heard him didn't you? He was looking for you, and traces of your constricted spiritual pressure must have passed on to the young ghost of a girl so they were after her because of your contact with her."She turned to look at him over her shoulder. "It's you they're after!"

"They're after...me?"

The Hollow chose this moment to reappear with its wound healed.

"Take your sister and get out of-"

"You're saying it's my fault that girl is in danger? It's my fault that Yuzu and Karin are hurt?"

He ran straight in front of the great beast.

"You want me? Come and get me then!" The Hollow roared and lunged at him. The shinigami also lunged, jumping in between the two and slicing her sword down at the head of the Hollow.

The shinigami was the one that got hurt more, the sword struck on the head of the hollow but the cut was shallow and only a piece of the mask was broken off; although it was enough to make it scream and back away.

Shinigami, however, was nowhere near the condition to be able to walk away, she fell to the ground, bleeding from the wounds on her upper body, her sword falling from her hand.

"Did...you really think, that... it would all end well... if you gave it your soul?" the tone of her voice told him enough; she treated him like he was a kid that didn't know how the world worked.

Her wounds were fatal, she knew that much, she wasn't adept enough at healing Kido to fix an artery in time, she would bleed out in a few minutes. After crawling to the nearby pole and propping herself on it, she asked,

"Do you want to save your family?" Her voice was weaker than usual but still held that commanding tone in it.

"Of course, is there a way?" He would jump at any opportunity to save his sisters.

Reinforcements wouldn't come fast enough, she could ask for the seal to be released, but it would take too long, her shoulders were injured and holding her sword was the best she could do, swinging it was not an option.

"Only one, it might not work, and if it does we will both eventually end up dead, but it's the only way." She didn't know why she didn't tell him that she would bleed out soon, what reason was there for her not to worry him?

"I'll do it." He didn't hesitate in his decision, that was a good sign, he might make a good shinigami.

"You must become a shinigami; thrust my sword through your heart and I will give you the power to protect your family." He was both shocked and afraid when she told him about becoming a shinigami; but he heard the Hollow screaming in the background, trying to recover from it's wounds, and then he decided.

"Give me the sword, Shinigami."

The Hollow recovered.

"My name isn't Shinigami, it's Suì-Fēng "

He took the blade in his hands as the Hollow finally started running towards them.

"And I'm Kurosaki Ichigo."

As the sword entered his body and touched his heart great light emanated from his form. The Hollow was blinded and before it could do anything it lost an arm.

Ichigo was now wearing a shinigami uniform, and holding a giant sword in his hand. He swung the sword and rested it on his shoulders as he looked at the Hollow.

'How did this happen? I intended to give him enough to kill the Hollow, I thought much more would destroy his soul but he took all my power anyway? What the hell is he! He confused my senses, broke a Kido and his Zanpakuto is gigantic!'

Ichigo charged at the Hollow, dodging it's foot and cutting it off in a clean slice, making it howl in pain.

"For harming my family, I'm sending you to hell!"

He sliced downwards and cut the monster clean in half and it disintegrated.

* * *

Kurosaki Ichigo

15 years old

High school student/Shinigami

* * *

-Addition-

So here she was, sitting in an awkward position on the ground, bleeding out. Ichigo fell unconscious as soon as he defeated the Hollow, the strain being too much for him. Karin and Yuzu were still out and she was sitting there in the middle of the street wearing nothing but the white undergarments of her specialized uniform and her captains haori over them.

And then she heard loud footsteps behind her. They sounded like the old-fashioned geta clogs.

As she turned around, she saw one person she didn't want to see; now or ever.

Urahara Kisuke. There he was, slowly walking to her, his cane in his hand, clad entirely in green with a striped bucket hat on his head. She could still see his messy hair underneath.

The thing that changed most about him were the eyes, the look in his eyes was dead-serious, he wasn't acting all goofy as he did all the other times she would see him.

He calmly walked past her towards Ichigo. After only a few seconds of examining him, he turned and walked to her. Still with his serious look he talked down to her, something she never thought she would see.

"You'll bleed out and die." no humor in his voice.

"I know"she did her best to glare at him, but after all she's been through and the blood she's lost, it was hard and not at all effective.

"I want to help you." once again, completely serious.

"Why?" She was suspicious of him, she always had been.

"You won't like the price." He ignored her question, "What would you do if I were to heal you and leave?"

"I would head to Soul Society as soon as possible and turn myself in."

"And what would you do about Kurosaki-san?"

"I would plead for his case, he would probably be left alive... for a while at least."

"The price is: you will stay in the human world, you will hide from the Shinigami, you will train him, you will teach him, but most of all you will keep an eye on him." It took her more than 30 seconds to some up with an answer.

"Two conditions."

"I'm listening."

"I fight her as soon as possible and you tell me everything."

'She screwed up, the blood loss is probably making it hard for her to even realize how she said her request.'

"The 'everything' part isn't mine to decide, it might take a while to get an answer to that part of the request."

Urahara was a patient man, he was also a very intelligent man, he knew what her choice would be before even she decided on it, and besides, he had at least a few tricks to get her on his side.

"...Alright, I accept."

_**#wishes from the past reach the future without losing their color#**_

_**Authors Note:**_

_Alright, so this fanfic is mainly gonna be the entire bleach story rewritten with _Suì-Fēng_ instead of Rukia. So here's a few 'heads up' warnings:_

_-Pairing is _Suì-Fēng_ x Ichigo_

_-There will be no lemons (explicit content of the erotic nature)_

_-I am going through all of the episodes 3-4 times before I even start typing out the chapter so deja vu is highly probable if you haven't seen the earlier episodes in a while..._

_-Each episode of the anime will be adapted to 1 chapter (could change in the future)_

_-Kon will probably NOT make an appearance_

_-Ichigo will get more than just the Getsuga Tensho as an attack_

_-Main motivation for this fanfic is the fact that both _Suì-Fēng_ and Ichigo have similar characteristics as characters_

_-Do NOT expect periodic updates, it might happen that I update the story in a few days but that does not mean anything._

_-I have placed a total of 3 references to other works, one is from a game, the other two are from a movie; first to guess gets a cookie_

_-I need a beta reader_

_-Reviews with interesting questions will be answered in the next chapter publicly._


	2. Work of a Shinigami

**Work of a Shinigami**

_**#Somebody's cry, reflected in those sparkling eyes#**_

* * *

"Go~d Mo~rning, Ichigo~!"

"!"

"Damn you, why can't you just act like a normal person at least every once in a while!" Ichigo was pinning Isshin to the floor, after he tried waking up his son by jumping feet first on him.

"You are doing well my son, I have nothing else to teach you." Isshin struggled, but it wasn't good enough for him to get free.

"Wait, it's tomorrow? Is everyone alright?"

"What? What are you talking about?"

He was now standing outside, in the place where only a mere hours ago he had fought his greatest battle in life, he had saved his sisters and defeated the monster that threatened to kill them all.

'No one else remembers it, but it's not a dream. I remember everything. Is this how the Shinigami avoid being detected? They mess with the memories of people and place all the blame on others.'

'But I still have my memories, so that has to mean something. She said she would be in the city for the next month so I'll probably see her soon; and she did say that we'll end up dead eventually because of that...'

"Ichi-nii, you'll be late to school if you don't hurry."

"Oh, right." he walked Into the house, deciding that he had time to worry later.

* * *

"So Orihime, what did you bring for lunch?" Asked the short haired girl-

"Ah, today I brought ramen with fishcakes, honey and wasabi; would you like some Tatsuki-chan?" the other girl made a disgusted look,

"Ah, no thanks, I have my own lunch."

Neither saw Ichigo as he came from the corridor to their side before he bumped into Inoue. She fell and all her school stuff was sprawled on the floor.

"Oh, Inoue." he acknowledged her.

"Ichigo, apologize at least, dammit!" Tatsuki yelled at him.

"Oh, yeah, sorry, here," he offered her his hand but his eternally scowling face was a bit too close to her.

"It's alright," she was up in an instant, " I-Um, I... Um..." she muttered some incomprehensible sentence and ran off.

"The hell did I do?" Ichigo asked as he looked to Tatsuki for an answer.

"You've got one hell of a mean face, ya' know?" she said like it was an everyday thing.

"Why did you come so late anyway? It's already lunchtime." she asked, since Ichigo, despite his reputation as a thug, rarely comes to school late.

"Stuff happened, it's a long story, I'll tell you about it later." he walked off towards the classroom, to start getting ready for classes.

* * *

"So, Ichigo, I heard that a truck crashed into your house." his annoying friend Keigo said, "Did you finish cleaning up already?" his next friend Mizuiro (one of the few people in class that didn't annoy him) asked.

"Right, like we could clean up something like that quickly."

"Do you need any help?" the last person asked, a giant of a man.

"No need, Chad, it's not much."

Chad was a goodhearted giant, always willing to help, he was also in a band with some of his other friends.

Mizuiro was a womanizer, constantly chasing women, and never even glancing at the girls his age. And he was damn good at it.

Keigo was like the annoying little brother, more annoying and less like a brother, but still, he was a friend... of sorts.

Tatsuki was his long-time friend from back when his mother was still alive. They cared for each other but didn't really show it.

"Kurosaki Ichigo." he heard the voice behind him, he knew that tone, that feeling when she addressed him like she was looking down on him. He turned around to face her in an instant.

He couldn't really be mad at her, if it wasn't for her, his sisters would be dead now, and while he didn't want to show it on the outside, he was praising her on the inside; thanking the heavens that she was sent to help. He decided to keep his scowl on his face anyway.

One look at her arrogant face was all he needed to start getting some of that hate back.

"Suì-Fēng." He tried his best to imitate her tone; and he did it surprisingly well.

She just smirked at him.

"Why are you here?" He asked, holding his indifferent look on his face.

'That uniform fits her well.'

"Why do you care?" She copied him.

'He looks good with that serious face on.'

"We need to talk." He still had the same face, although, he was willing to ignore the way she acted, he actually wanted to say thanks for all she did, of course not in front of everyone here. After all he was the guy who beat up anyone in his way.

"In private." She knew that he would lead her somewhere private to talk anyway, but she had to make sure that his friends got the message to not disturb.

He nodded and turned around to leave, he noted that his friends were wide-eyed after witnessing their short exchange.

* * *

They got to a private place in front of the school.

"Alright, now why are you here?" his scowl was more shallow this time, but he was still scowling, "After last night, I know for a fact that there's better stuff for you to be doing." He wanted to add an insult at the end, but decided against it, no need to agitate her any further.

"There's a lot that would need to be explained if I wanted you to understand the full story. So I'll keep it short and simple, at least for now. First, transfer of powers is illegal, if the others find out about it, I will be executed, you would probably end up the same," she raised her hand to stop him from talking, "Keep it a secret, or those who know of it could be in danger too."

"Second, I was planning on transferring only a portion of my power to you, but somehow you took all of it, if I had been in a better condition I would have already turned myself in." she said it as if it was normal for her to throw herself to her death.

"What? Turn yourself in? Why"

"Don't interrupt me, Third, it's now your duty to protect this town from Hollows since you have my powers and I still haven't recovered."

He didn't say anything for the next few seconds, he just looked at her as if she was joking.

"Oh hell no... I'll be damned before I fight one of those things again!"

"You fought one last night, and you fought well enough."

"Yeah, well, not to sound selfish or anything, but my family was on the line, I can't fight for complete strangers."

She saw through him, he had the will to fight, was he afraid of Hollows? That was something she could understand, she couldn't move when she saw her first Hollow. He had the will to fight, his reputation was enough to tell her that. He cared about innocent people, the way he helped the ghost of the girl told her that much. Yet somewhere deep inside him, there was fear.; she didn't know him well enough yet to figure him out completely.

Urahara told her that she would have to spend a lot of time with him, and her authority had nothing on Ichigo, he would just shrug it off or try and top her. She could try faking some informality with him, it could help making him more cooperative.

"Follow me." She turned and left to some bushes that were on the side.

* * *

"What do you think they're talking about?" Keigo asked, since they were all at the window watching the new transfer student and Ichigo.

"Ichigo seems upset about something." Tatsuki said, to no one in particular, deciding to ask him about it later.

Then they left towards the bushes.

"Oi, they're going to the bushes!" Keigo once again said what was on everyone's mind.

They disappeared in the bushes and everything was still for a few moments and then they saw the upper part of Ichigos body fall down on its back; completely still. Suì-Fēng walked out of the bushes and quickly grabbed his shoulders, she hid his unconscious body in the bushes, dusted off her hands and left the courtyard.

"Did she just... knock him out cold?" Mizuiro was the one to break the silence this time.

"I think so... I don't want to be anywhere near him when he wakes up, he's gonna be really pissed." Tatsuki said, knowing that Keigo was already getting ready to rush down and besides, Ichigo deserved this for never telling her about this girl since they seemed to know each other well.

"Alright class, settle down." Ochi-sensei came into the classroom and the class continued, most of the witnesses thinking about Suì-Fēng.

* * *

"What did you do?" Ichigo yelled looking himself over.

"I separated your soul from your body, you are now in your Shinigami form." Suì-Fēng told him as she hid his body from sight. "Now follow me."

"What if someone sees me?"

"You are like a regular spirit, you won't be seen."

She left without repeating the order to follow her. He followed, interested in what she had to show him.

* * *

They arrived at the park where Suì-Fēng stopped and checked her phone.

"Why are we here?" he didn't see anything strange around.

"Orders from Soul Society, as far as they know, I'm still the one that is purifying the Hollows, I get notified of Hollow activity."

He was going to ask if there was a Hollow nearby but his unspoken question was answered when he heard a scream that sounded just like the one from last night.

He saw that a young boy was running from a spider-like hollow. He grabbed the hilt of his sword right away.

"Wait!" Suì-Fēng commanded, "Two things, can you slay a soul knowing that it used to be human? And isn't that boy just a stranger?" She was gambling, she knew that if his resolve was to falter the boy would be devoured, from what she knew of him, he was tough for a human, but he was no longer judged only by human standards.

"That doesn't mean I can just let him die!"

"Don't be naive! Shinigami must be fair to all souls, if you save him now, you must be ready to save every other soul in the world!" She was pushing him to the edge, if he fails now, he won't be good enough as a temporary replacement.

The Hollow swung it's front claw at the boy. It was cut off and fell useless to the side; the Hollow screamed and retreated for the moment.

"Are you prepared then, Kurosaki Ichigo?" She was smirking at his back, glad that her plan seemed to have worked.

"Hell no."

"What?"

"I didn't save the kid because of duty, I didn't save him because I had to, I saved him because I wanted to save him. You're not much different, last night, were you thinking of your duty when you jumped in to save me?"

Suì-Fēng was wide-eyed, he was right, she could have attacked from behind and easily killed the Hollow, but that would mean that he would have died, why did she want to save him? Did she see something in him and his actions?

The Hollow appeared again, still missing a limb.

"Life is never sacrificed because of duty, at least not in my case!" He struck at the Hollow and purified it.

He had managed to get through two more difficult matters for any Shinigami.

'Am I ready to give my life for others, am I ready to sacrifice all I have to save innocent lives?'

'Can I look at a Hollow and see a tormented soul, can I look at a Hollow and purify it without involving my emotions?'

'He's growing quickly, I need to make sure he doesn't stand out too much.'

"Hey, kid, you okay?" Ichigo was now kneeling in front of the crying spirit.

"Oi, Suì-Fēng, I just place the hilt on the forehead, right?"

"Yes, it should be instinctive even for you."

He placed the hilt on the kids forehead,

"You should stop crying and go to heaven already, no use in staying behind like this."

The spirit turned into a butterfly and flew away, leaving the two of them on their own.

"I'm going home." He left her behind, she seemed like she was thinking about something but she caught up with him soon.

* * *

The day Ichigo got his powers was a Friday, Suì-Fēng came as a transfer student on Saturday, and now it was late Sunday, for the most of the day Suì-Fēng was missing and wouldn't tell Ichigo where she was. Right now they were in the town, walking around casually dressed, she was filling in any holes he had in his knowledge of Hollows.

"So, I should be able to take care of all the easier ones, but if I ever see one of those Menos, I should just run? That doesn't make sense, shouldn't I try and hold it back as much as I can?"

"That would be the advised course of action for a regular Shinigami of your strength, however, if a Menos comes into the city, Soul Society will send appropriate measures against it, and you're not skilled enough to evade them, you would be seen and probably placed under suspicion. We don't need them chasing us."

"Alright I get that, anything else I should be worried about?"

"Some of the easier hollows have special abilities that are difficult to go around, most common are cloaking and flying. The thing you should be worried about even more than Hollows is the fact that we will soon start training."

"Training? What kind of training?"

"We'll start by evaluating your skill, and then work our way through the basics of all four base Shinigami skills; Zanjutsu, Hakuda, Kido and Hoho. Sparring should also help me recover faster." Suì-Fēng was still holding her commanding tone, but was a bit more relaxed around Ichigo.

Silence fell between them for a few moments, Ichigo didn't want to break it but he had to know something.

"Suì-Fēng."

"Yes?"

"How many people did you leave behind?"

"...People I care about, or just people I general?"

"People that care about you."

"...Probably none, why do you ask?"

"...No reason..."

It was the first time they had a serious talk about private matters, they would scowl most of the time and a few moments of a private talk with actual emotions was something they both found soothing In a way, was it because of the nature of the talk or because of the company, they didn't know.

They heard a car abruptly break and saw that it had just hit a girl. They started running towards the scene as the car accelerated and ran away.

"Hey, you alright?" Ichigo was the first one there.

"Kurosaki-kun? Suì-Fēng-san?"

"Inoue? Are you alright? Did that car just hit you?"

"Oh? I'm fine, there's nothing to worry about."

"You sure? Do you need me to walk you home?"

"I'm sure, I'll just get my dinner and leave you two alone." She didn't show her state of mind, instead she put on a smile and sucked it up.

She walked to the other side of the road, abruptly stopped and turned around.

"Enjoy your date!" she didn't see their faces or hear their confused mutterings and yells.

It most definitely wasn't a date, it took a total of 2 seconds for both of them to decide that for themselves. They stayed silent for the next 5 minutes, cooling off.

He hated to admit this about anyone, but Ichigo knew he needed her, she already taught him a lot, and there was still a lot more to learn from her, besides, she knew how to explain things simply and with enough detail to him.

She had to stay close to him, she knew that she could probably avoid the Soul Society for another few weeks on her own, Urahara said that in the worst case she would have to join the Visored, as they called themselves now, and hide with them. But Ichigo was brash and hardheaded, and that would get him into trouble. And if he get's in trouble, trouble would find her too.

This time Suì-Fēng felt the need to interrupt the awkward silence, but before she could Ichigo stepped in,

"Where are you staying?"

"Why do you care?"

"In case of emergency, I'm useless like this if any Hollows show up."

"Don't worry, I'll be close..." ' Closer than I thought possible... I'll kill Urahara if I live through all this mess.' It was time for a bit more intel gathering,

"How well do you know that girl?"

"Inoue? Not really well, never had a real conversation with her, she's more of a 'friend-of-a-friend' to me, why?"

"She might be in danger, that bruise on her leg was made by a Hollow."

"What? But shouldn't you have received orders about it?"

"It must have been a fresh Hollow so the barriers didn't react strongly to it, it should be detected normally next time."

"Why did it just give her a bruise? You said that Hollows want to eat the entire souls." by now awkwardness between them was gone.

"It could be the tormented soul of a dead relative..."

"Well, shit..."

* * *

Tatsuki rang the bell to Orihimes flat.

"Oh, Tatsuki-chan!"

"Orihime! What's wrong? Were you crying?"

"Oh, I was just cutting some onions and it made me cry, it's nothing really. Come on in."

* * *

Ichigo heard a knock on his door,

"Yeah?"

"Ichi-nii, did you see my blue pajamas?" Karin was looking around the house for a while now so it was only a matter of time before she ended up in his room.

"No, and I don't know where they could be." Karin left, deciding that it wasn't worth it to waste any more time on it.

Ichigo was reading a manga, or it seemed like it, he was on the same page for the last few minutes. He was thinking about Suì-Fēng; he had a reputation to keep, a tough guy that you shouldn't mess with, a troublemaker that does well enough in all subjects. He didn't like rumors, and he hated the ones about his love life.

Sure, he was interested in girls, he was a healthy teenager after all; but he didn't put much fate in physical appearance, to him, it was the personality that mattered the most. And on the inside Suì-Fēng was aggressive, hardheaded and commanding. Besides, she mentioned once that she was more than a century and a half old, sure he wouldn't mind dating a woman a bit older than him but that was just ridiculous.

Suì-Fēng was thinking along the same lines but in a lighter way. That girl thought that they were on a date, was that what a date looked like these days, it's been a long time since she had anything close to that. And she didn't forget the first impression she left on her new classmates, she thought it was good enough to show her and her substitute as a sort of 'rivals' or 'old enemies'. Rumors would definitely start going around, there had to be at least a few people like Matsumoto in the school.

She would usually try to deal with rumors preemptively, debunking them as soon as possible, since Matsumotos rumors about her were predictable. But she didn't know what to expect here, so she decided to keep silent about it at least for now, until she can see what happens.

Her phone rang and she opened it to see the orders. In a second she had the red glove on her hand and opened the door of the closet she was in.

To say that Ichigo was surprised would be a gross understatement, here he was thinking about her and she was in his closet all along, wearing his sisters pajamas.

"What are you doing-"

"On the floor, now!" she yelled and lunged at him, making his body fall in a heap on the floor and his soul crash on it's rear, looking at the big claw that just came out of the wall to try and grab him.

The Hollow emerged completely, showing it's snakelike body and two sharp claws.

"Shit!" Ichigo cursed, he didn't expect something like this to happen.

"What are you waiting for?" Suì-Fēng almost yelled, bringing Ichigo from his daze; he swung his sword and managed to cut the Hollows arm making it roar.

"You idiot, not there!" she nearly face-palmed when he missed the mask next time; however, on the third swing he managed to nick it's mask, cutting deep enough to make almost half of it fall off...

"This is...?" he knew the person behind the mask.

"Not deep enough!"

The beasts roar was loud and it left, giving them some rest, at least for a while.

They heard a quiet noise and turned to the door, someone knocked on the door once and ran off. Ichigo heard that whoever had been at his door was now running down the stairs, opening the door of the house and running away. He understood why that was when he looked at the small object under the door.

* * *

Ishhin was going to take a bath and go to bed, however when he was passing Ichigos room, he heard his son yell.

"What are you doing-"

"On the floor, now!" the other voice was female, and from the sound of it, it was a mature woman too. Then he heard some loud crashing noises.

"What are you waiting for?"

"You idiot, not there!" Isshin almost fell to the ground despite the fact that he was holding onto the door frame with one hand.

"Not deep enough!" Isshin was now sporting a perverted grin on his face but his fatherly instincts took over and he left to his room as fast as he could, grabbing something from one of the drawers and going back to Ichigos room.

* * *

Isshin had just pushed a condom under Ichigos door, probably because he thought... oh god, he can't hear Hollows or Shinigami, all he heard was Suì-Fēng and what she had yelled at him.

"What's wrong? What is that?" inside his mind, Ichigo looked up at the heavens and thanked them for Suì-Fēng lack of knowledge.

"N-Nothing, it's not important." he quickly made his way to the door and grabbed it, throwing it in a drawer. "That Hollow was Inoues brother." he tried changing the subject.

"Then she is in danger, we don't have much time, we go now."

Ichigo silently cheered, happy that he avoided the bullet, bis father however would not be so lucky... the bastard would die a slow and painful death.

"And it most definitely is something, you WILL explain later. Understood?" Suì-Fēng was being commanding again, and his silent cheer died.

* * *

"Are you sure it was a date?"

"...No..."

Tatsuki sighed, she had no idea what to do, Orihime was a great friend, and she knew of her crush on Ichigo, but he was oblivious about it. Ichigo was a great friend too, and even though she wanted to punch him right now, she wanted to hit herself more than that. She should have at least done something, maybe hint it to Ichigo, maybe arrange them to have a few moments alone or something like that.

And now, an unknown girl comes along and steals away Ichigo. Well, she wasn't exactly challenged for him, and Ichigo never did show any interest in any girl, including Suì-Fēng.

"I'm sure it was nothing, they seemed like old acquaintances so they were probably catching up on stuff, now stop worrying and tell me what else had happened."

"Well... I got hit by a car..."

Tatsuki would have yelled but she heard something crash loudly in Orihimes kitchen.

* * *

_**#A wish carried on the wind, a request from the moon#**_

**Authors Notes:**

Well, this marks the end of episode 2/chapter 2.

I was actually thinking of making the relationship a bit deeper at this point but gave up on it, deciding that I should take it slower.

I've got no idea why I did that to Orihime, I don't hate her, but I couldn't and wouldn't just ignore her crush on Ichigo. Advice on how to handle Orihime is welcome.

So far no one guessed the references in the first chapter;

1: reference to the movie 300 line "this is madness!"

2: reference to Deus Ex:Human Revolution game "I never asked for this!"

3: reference to the movie sixth sense "I can see dead people"

answers:

**VanguardXIII**: I'm glad you like the story, in the start story will be quite similar to the canon, however, there will be some major changes further down the line.

**HeavenlyXblueXangel**: Indeed, if they capture her, it won't be as easy as it was with Rukia. A captains disappearance will be investigated by more people after all, *hint – hint* :D

As always, any suggestions should be sent as private messages, criticism is fine as long as you make an effort to make it constructive.

Here's the link if you want to see what Sui-Feng is wearing as casual clothes: .com/gallery/?offset=48#/d1ct2dz


	3. Brothers wish, sisters wish

**Brothers wish, sisters wish**

_**#To live as fully as possible, day by day#**_

* * *

"What was that?" Tatsuki voiced her question, slowly walking towards Orihimes kitchen to check the noise.

Orihime stood up and followed behind Tatsuki, wondering what was happening.

She felt something strange in her body, when she looked down she saw that she was bleeding heavily from her right shoulder.

"W-What...?"

* * *

Ichigo was jumping from roof to roof, from telephone pole to telephone pole and Suì-Fēng was on his back, holding a bit tighter than he would like her to. Well, considering what his dad just did to him, he doubted that he could look at the woman normally ever again.

"Manipulate the spiritual energy of the surroundings to your advantage, try using the energy inside you to boost your speed mid-flight." She was instructing him to speed his progress, out of need, since they were in a hurry now. She decided that she would need to have an extensive evaluation of his abilities later. She noticed something else, he was still blushing, even in the dark she could see it, that had to mean that whatever had happened back there must have had something to do with her, but without enough information she couldn't draw any conclusions.

She could always ask Urahara but the risk of it being something embarrassing for her too was too great, she would just get it out of Ichigo later.

* * *

"Orihime!" Orihime didn't react, she just fell lifelessly to the ground, Tatsuki tried running towards her but an invisible force launched her into a wall.

She tried getting up but her chest hurt, one of her ribs must be cracked. Whatever it was that hit her must be big, she could see some sort of distortion in the air in front of her but nothing else. The distortion then rushed at her slamming her harder into a wall and throwing her across the room.

"Tatsuki-chan!"

"It's no use Orihime. She can't see or hear us." The great monster that Orihime was so scared of spoke in a deep voice.

Tatsuki was unconscious and on the other side of the room, Orihime decided that Tatsuki was as safe as she can be for now.

"How... do you know my name?" maybe talking to it would help.

"I'm sad Orihime, you have forgotten me already..." it outstretched it's arm towards her,

"No! Stay away!" she cowered from it.

"I'm sad! I'm sad! I'm sad! Orihime!" the great claw flew towards Orihime and she closed her eyes ready to accept her fate. Death never came for her, she opened her eyes and saw that Ichigo was in front of her, defending her with a huge sword. She turned around to see Suì-Fēng next to Tatsuki, checking her over with glowing hands.

"I'm not letting you get away this time, you bastard!" Ichigo yelled and pushed back the Hollow.

And it got away.

"Dammit!" he was visibly frustrated,

"Kurosaki-kun..." he turned to look at her, "it really is you, but how..."

"Inoue, how can you see..." he saw the chain connecting her soul to her body and relaxed a bit, there was still a chance for her to survive if he could get the fight to move away from her.

"Yes, she can see you... because she's dead!" the Hollow emerged from the wall and Ichigo charged, but his sword swipe was dodged and the Hollow grabbed Orihime while at the same time using it's tail to smash Ichigo through a wall. Ichigo didn't notice that he was standing in mid-air, he knew it was one of the basic skills for Shinigami, but he was too concentrated on the fight to notice that he had done it unintentionally. Just as he was about to charge forward,

"Don't move!" the Hollow had Inoue in it's grasp, and Ichigo had to stop in order to ensure her safety. But he didn't get to watch the scene for long since he was slammed towards the ground with the same tail that had got him outside of the house.

He hit the ground hard, getting knocked out.

"Hey, wake up! Wake up dammit!" there was urgency in Suì-Fēngs voice, she knew that alone she couldn't face that Hollow and win, at least not without sacrificing someone.

* * *

"Kurosaki-kun!" Orihime tried to struggle but the claw that held her wasn't moving. "Let go of me!"

"Orihime... have you forgotten me?" the big monster that held her was not yelling at her, it asked her a question, and after looking into it's eyes, she knew the answer.

"Bro...ther?"

* * *

"Wake up!"

"Shut up, I'm fine..." he acted all tough despite the fact that he probably had a slight concussion, judging by the blood flowing from his forehead.

"Don't talk to me like that! Can you still fight?"

"Yeah, I told you I'm fine."

"Good, and remember, even if it was her brother, it's a Hollow now, it must be destroyed."

* * *

"You can't be! My brother wouldn't do something like this!"

It can't be, it must be a lie...

"I was lonely... you used to pray for me every day, and I was so happy; but then, you met that girl and prayed less and less... and after you got to high school you stopped praying completely!

Tatsuki-chan is my friend, I wanted to show you that I'm not living in the past...

"But brother, I-"

"Listen to me Orihime! If you care for me even a little you will do as I say! I will eat that Shinigami first and finish this..."

Why are you doing this...?

"Wait! Please don't hurt Kurosaki-kun, he has nothing to do with this, please-"

"Silence! This is all your fault anyway! You will listen to me or I will kill you!" Ichigo chose this moment to fly in through the hole in the wall that he had left; and he stabbed into the tail of Inoues brother, he twisted and tried cutting it off but it was too thick to cut off in a single attack.

The Hollow dropped Inoue and she rolled away, Ichigo jumped in front of her, not wishing to repeat the mistake of attacking first. It payed off as the Hollow tried attacking with its right claw and Ichigo, being ready for him, sliced it clean off.

It howled in pain and Ichigo looked at the two of them. Suì-Fēng walked into the room and surveyed the situation.

"You bastard... do you even know why big brothers are born first? It's so they can protect the little brothers and sisters that come after them! A big brother can never tell his sister that he'll kill her, not even if it costs you your life!"

"Shut up! Orihime belongs to me! I raised her and took care of her when our parents left us! Orihime, come here now..." It outstretched it's other claw towards her, beckoning her to come closer.

"It's a trap." Suì-Fēng said as she placed an arm on Orihimes shoulder, so that she would be able to stop her from running off on her own. Her hair clips glistened and reflected a ray of light, making the Hollow scream and grab it's head. It slammed it's head into the wall a few times.

"Orihime... belongs to me!" the Hollow opened it's jaw wide and aimed straight for Ichigo.

"That's bullshit! Inoue is Inoue, she doesn't belong to anyone!" Ichigo raised his sword and grabbed the blade with his free hand, placing it in front of himself, effectively stopping the Hollow.

He pushed harder and managed to get the Hollow out of the house, charging straight after it. He jumped off, raising his blade high into the air.

The Hollow had another trick left, it spat out a blob of acid and hit Ichigos right hand, covering his fist and forearm in acid, making him drop his weapon. This time he fell on his feet and barely managed to straighten himself before seeing the Hollow flying towards him at great speed, mouth agape, ready to devour him.

He wasn't harmed, once again he was saved by the one he wanted to protect.

Inoue had jumped in front of him and took the attack, luckily for her though, the Hollow stopped before tearing her in half.

"Orihime..."

"I'm sorry brother, it's my fault, because that night, I said 'don't leave me alone'... it's because of me that you couldn't go to heaven...I knew you were always watching over me, that's why... I wanted to show you that I could go on, I wanted to show you that I'm not sad anymore, I wanted to show you that you can go to heaven happy, knowing that I'm happy..." she fell down, and he screamed, his mask shimmering in and out of existence.

"N-No, it's not... your..." he screamed as his mask started cracking

"What's happening now?"

"He's struggling against his nature, he was forced into becoming a Hollow, so there is still a part of him that is free of it."

The mask broke, revealing the face of a young man, disturbingly out of place on a body of a beast. He looked down sadly at his sister, looking at the hair clips he had given her as a present so long ago.

"Stand back, she can still be saved, the wound is not deep."

"I heard those were from you, she said she wears them every day because they remind her of you..." Ichigo said seeing that he was no longer facing a raging beast, but instead he was looking at a tortured soul.

He had hurt his sister, almost killed her, he had harmed her best friend and genuinely hated her while he was in his previous state. He didn't want it to happen again; he went over to the sword that lay on the ground.

"If I stay like this, I'll turn into the same beast eventually, I don't want that to happen."

Suì-Fēng saw that Ichigo didn't like it, but he didn't protest either,

"It's the right choice, there is no coming back from being a Hollow, he is doing it to protect his sister."

He was about to do it when he heard a weak voice.

"Wait, brother... that day, when you bought me these hair pins, I thought they were childish, and I didn't say anything as you went to work... that was our goodbye... so please, let me say it properly this time... brother, I'll see you later..."

"Yes, see you later..." he smiled, his resolve as high as it could be and he did it, he disintegrated with a smile on his face as the sword fell to the ground.

Ichigo solemnly looked at the scene, happy that it was over and slightly amused at Suì-Fēngs face. Inoue was weeping into her shoulder like they were great friends, all Suì-Fēng wanted to do was wrap things up as soon as possible and get back to her warm closet.

* * *

Suì-Fēng was walking through the corridor in school and cursing herself, she forgot to ask Ichigo about that embarrassing incident last night, she would have to ask him later...

"Hey there pretty girl, I hear you're new here..." if there was something she didn't need right now, It was this, a sleazy high school student hitting on her. She definitely didn't have time for this, so she stopped it before it got further.

"You're in the way, move." that wasn't a sentence, it was a command, he just ignored it, and that would prove to be a bad mistake...

"I'm Shibuimaru Takuo, you must have heard of me already." his smile was obnoxious, she was sure that if she wasn't trained she would have thrown up already.

But she had to admit, she did hear about him, he was known as a leader of the second strongest group of lowlifes in the school, first being Ichigo (although she wouldn't call Ichigos friends lowlifes, mainly because they actually attended school)

"Move." same word, same tone, same reaction from Takuo. He ignored her and went to place an arm around her. That was a bad idea.

Before the arm could touch her she grabbed it and twirled around him, twisting his arm behind his back, making him go down to his knees. With a carefully placed kick to his lower back she got the reaction she wanted to see. He arched and she slammed his back onto the floor grabbing him by his throat.

"I warned you twice, next time, there won't be any warnings before I castrate you, understood?" she had thought about dealing with him like Unohana would, with a creepy smile but decided against it, thinking that he could misunderstand the message, so she settled for her standard look she used for her lieutenant.

He nodded weakly and she got up to leave, she noticed that Arisawa was watching from a distance.

Tatsuki got a wicked plan, it would be perfect for what she needed. She hurried to catch up to Suì-Fēng before she could enter the classroom.

"Suì-Fēng-san," Tatsuki was as polite as she could be, "I saw how you dealt with Shibuimaru, would I be right to assume that you are proficient in martial arts?"

"Yes, why do you want to know?"

"I'm the school champion in Karate, would you care for a sparring session after school?"

'So that's what she wants, to bring me on a terrain I'm satisfied with and covertly interrogate me? Challenge accepted...' Suì-Fēng smirked

"Sure. When and where?"

Tasuki smiled, ' she took the bait...'

* * *

It was lunchtime and Ichigos group was having lunch on the roof, he was on the side with Suì-Fēng they got quite a number of glances thrown their way.

"Is that the effect of that memory thing?" Ichigo asked after hearing the story Orihime had about her house being wrecked.

"Yes."

"...did you ever use it on me?"

"No."

Silence fell between them, he knew why she was silent, he still hadn't told her if he would help her.

"I can't say that I'm prepared... I'm not a saint to give my life for anyone, but I'm not scum to see people suffer and not try and help them. So I'll help you."

"I guess... that will have to be good enough." He gave her his hand and she took it, "Good to be working with you."

Once more, silence fell and they stared into the distance.

"You still have to explain that thing from last night..." he gulped silently, but she noticed it,

"Not in the school, later." he quickly made plans about avoiding it further even though he knew that she wouldn't let it go.

"I have a sparring match against Arisawa after school." she said observing his face out of the corner of her eye. She wanted to see if he would be worried for either one of them, and what he would do.

"She challenged you, didn't she? I'll stay and watch." she smirked, his commanding tone needed work but he was getting better quickly.

* * *

Tatsuki and Suì-Fēng were standing on the mats wearing identical practice clothes, facing off. They were both smirking at the other, a large part of the class turned up to watch, including a few teachers. There was no referee needed, not that there was a person who would willingly stand between those two. They took off, Suì-Fēng running faster than Tatsuki.

Tatsuki didn't bother asking what martial art Suì-Fēng knew, and right now she was regretting it a lot; while Tatsuki used perfect Karate, Suì-Fēng seemed to use a style that didn't have a set stance. She would start low with a few kicks under the guard, jump up with a few punches, fall down trying to sweep Tatsuki off her feet and lunge forward with a combo of kicks and punches.

She didn't get any hits in, she tried a few times, but Suì-Fēng saw an opening every time and hit her instead. She barely managed to block the kicks aimed at her, punches were too fast and she had to absorb many of them. It didn't help that her ribs and shoulder were sore from yesterday...

Suì-Fēng found the spar enjoyable, she didn't care about the fact that Tatsuki didn't hit back, this was a chance to test the limits of her fake Gigai body. She decided to end it after a few minutes of fighting, the girl was definitely skilled, but she was getting slower and sloppier. Suì-Fēng jumped high and curled into a ball, before Tatsuki could figure out what the hell had happened a foot slammed into her right shoulder, taking her down.

Now both her shoulders were sore, her forearms were practically burning from blocking all those kicks and breathing was difficult since her ribs were bruised all over, she lost. She contemplated getting up and continuing until she really couldn't move at all, but decided against that, she didn't get a single clean hit on Suì-Fēng, she can't win against her. So she relaxed in surrender. Sprawled on the mat breathing deeply.

Suì-Fēng had landed on her feet and looked at Tatsuki,

"For a few moments, that was actually fun..." Tatsuki stayed silent, hearing the whispers from everyone else in the room.

Tatsuki had completely forgotten about her mission to find out more about Suì-Fēng and even if she hadn't, she wouldn't have been able to get a question in through all the kicks and punches...

Ichigo left first, with Suì-Fēng following him as soon as she changed.

* * *

Ichigo and Suì-Fēng were walking slowly back to Ichigos house, Ichigo not daring to start a conversation out of fear that she would redirect it somehow. It was going good so far, they haven't spoken a word since they left school, and they were about half way home.

"Alright," Suì-Fēng stopped, " we're exactly half way between the house and the school. Now explain."

He knew what she was asking of him; and he was afraid, very, very afraid. How is he supposed to explain contraception to a grown woman? He subconsciously moved away from her to be just out of her reach and swallowed his fear.

Suì-Fēng noted his movement,

'He thinks I'll hit him, he's nervous; very nervous. The street is at least empty so I can hit him if I need to.'

"Um, you see..." she was surprised that she didn't need to repeat herself, " my dad was, well, he can't see or hear spirits, so all he could hear inside the room was you, and, from what he had heard, he must have thought that we, I mean, you and I were, being, um... intimate..."

Now that was not something she was expecting, he was sweating, scratching the back of his head, looking away from her and blushing all at the same time. She couldn't help it, she had a small blush too...

She was a trained assassin, there weren't many things that could surprise her in the world. She had ignored love in favor of training and becoming stronger than Yoruichi, but she wasn't immune to it, at least not completely. Being a master of reading faces she figured out what he was thinking.

He had thought about it, that was for sure, and by the look on his face he enjoyed thinking about it too...

"Don't flatter yourself." she was cold, but when he looked at her, he saw her blush.

"And what was that thing he slid under the door?" that was the last piece of the puzzle, but after seeing him blush even more, she said, "Do I even want to know?"

"Probably not." he jumped onto the opportunity to not explain how contraception worked to a clueless woman.

"I'll let it go then." she walked off, leaving him to sigh and follow.

'Everything went better than expected...'

"We will not talk of this again, ever." She was being commanding again, but this time he didn't care, he agreed with her.

That morning Isshin wasn't home so Ichigo didn't have to avoid or beat up anyone as he went to school, he was not that lucky after he got back home.

That evening, even though he was late to dinner, Isshin didn't say anything, he just beamed a giant smile towards Ichigo from behind the dinner table. Ichigo leveled him a deadly glare, took his dinner and went to his room. Suì-Fēng was already inside, having entered through the window. He shared his dinner with her in silence and went to bed, she slept in his closet.

* * *

_**#So that our wishes, too, will be in someones hearth someday.#**_

_Authors Note_: 3rd episode/chapter done, next up is the parakeet incident with Chad. Thank you all for the positive feedback, so far there have been no bad reviews. That's good :D

In case you haven't figured it out yet, the texts at the beginning and the end of each chapter are the lyrics of the first opening (one of the best ones IMHO) ep 25 starts with the second opening so in that one I'll use the lyrics from that opening.

As usual there is no release schedule, I'm mainly free during my days now, so I'll do my best to release as often as possible, no promises though.

Thanks to **Hayden Shaolin David** for telling me about the line breaks, I was putting in linebreaks in Open Office and didn't notice that they didn't transfer to the uploaded work, first two chapters have been fixed; if you notice any other mistakes, feel free to point them out.

This chapter is also shorter than the others, mainly because the episode itself is basically a single fight scene with some talking; so I added a bit of extra content to wrap up the 'hollow slaying/making love' incident.

I'm not happy with the way first part of the chapter 'feels' I don't know why...

I developed a 'thing' between Suì-Fēng and Tatsuki as you can plainly see... I don't know where I'm going with it. It might turn into a friendly rivalry or bitter hatred.

Suggestions and other stuff is welcome as usual, thank you for the favorites, story alert, writer faves and so on.


	4. Cursed Parakeet

Cursed Parakeet

#let's shine on like that star#

* * *

An ambulance siren could be heard in the not too distant streets.

"A cursed cockatiel?" the boy asked in disbelief as he looked at the bird inside the cage.

"Well, all it's previous owners died some kind of violent death..." the other boy replied, slightly nervous to be talking about such a subject.

"Really? That's freaky..."

There was a short pause.

"Shigeo, you want it?" the one who had brought the bird in the first place asked, he must have been told to get rid of it.

"What? After what you just said? Hell no!" he backed away a bit to prove his point; he wanted nothing to do with the cursed bird.

"Chad, how about you, it's cute...?" Chad looked at the bird, he had to admit, it was kind of cute.

"Stop it man, you know Chad has a weakness towards cute things."

They were next to a construction site, a long way above them, something blurry moved, although none of them noticed it. One of the steel girders that wasn't properly secured somehow fell over the edge, straight towards the group on the ground. The bird shrieked and started flapping about with its wings.

* * *

Somewhere in Hueco Mundo,

"Consume, we must continue to consume... to fill the emptiness of our existence, we must consume souls, a soul of a Shinigami is especially tasty... "

* * *

Chad was hunched over, a steel girder lightly bent across his back and head.

"Chad... are you okay?" the boy who had brought the bird there asked in disbelief.

"It's nothing." a substantial amount of blood came down from his forehead.

"Nothing? You're bleeding!"

"My name is Shibata Yuuichi, what is your name mister?" the bird asked.

"What is with this bird, it's talking like a real person!" Shigeo said, once again backing away slightly to prove that he wanted nothing to do with the bird.

"What is your name mister?"

"Yasutora Sado, I'm 15."

"Crap! Chad is intrigued by it."

* * *

It was lunchtime at school again and Ichigo was with Suì-Fēng on the roof.

"Wow, that healing Kido of yours is great, I can't even feel any injuries from yesterday." Ichigo said to Suì-Fēng.

"Hmph, like I needed you to say it, I knew that." she actually wasn't that good at healing, since she was a trained assassin she needed to know the body and all it's weak points, that gave her a lot of medical knowledge and since she didn't want to see herself lose any potential, she trained in some basics. Hearing his compliments made her feel a bit better, though she would never admit it.

She was fiddling with a juice box, if she wasn't as independent as she was, she would have asked for his help, but no, a gentleman must offer his help to the lady; not that she would ever call herself a lady, or Ichigo a gentleman; but still.

"Oh, you two are together again. You seem really friendly." Mizuiro came to their usual spot for lunch.

"Mizuiro. Idiot, does this seem friendly to you?" It actually didn't seem very friendly; neither of them were completely facing each other before he came there, they were standing a bit apart and their stances were saying 'I don't feel like I want to be near you...'.

"Oh. Well, I'm not sure how to say this, but you really should care more about what people say." There have been rumors about a violent girl that came here to tame Ichigo... not that he needed to be tamed or anything, he was a pretty nice guy once you got to know him, Mizuiro thought to himself.

"If I cared even a bit, I would have dyed my hair black a long time ago."

"Well, that's true." he gave a small smile to him before moving to the new transfer student, he needed to make a good impression, after all, she might have a few good looking older friends; friends that were, hopefully, not as violent and cold as she was.

"Hello, Suì-Fēng-san." He did his best to smile at her as genuinely as he could, he was a bit intimidated.

"And you are?" her scowl was frightening.

"Ah I didn't introduce myself yet, Kojima Mizuiro I'm 15 and I like-" he was cut off by Ichigo

"Hunting for girls."

"What? No!" Damn Ichigo, ruining him with a single sentence.

"It's true, despite his innocent looks, he's a terrible womanizer, be careful." Suì-Fēng didn't show any signs that she cared about it, she listened, but she didn't care.

"Ichigo, don't say that! I'm only interested in older women anyway."

Ichigo just smirked.

'Oh, if he only knew how old she is...'

"What? Our new transfer student Suì-Fēng-san is here!" Ichigo would recognize the voice anywhere. Mizuiro was being his usual exuberant self, and he would probably try and hit on Suì-Fēng, that could be bad, people would die, cities would burn.

"Ichigo seduced her and brought her here." Mizuiro was hoping to get back to Ichigo for ruining his image in front of the new transfer student. He missed the short deadly glares he got from both of them."

"Thank you for coming to join us in this garden of manliness!" Keigo exclaimed, overly enthusiastic about a girl joining them for lunch. Seemingly ignoring the seducing part, mostly because he saw the looks Mizuiro missed, and they were scary." Today instead of lunch we'll have a party!" They started ignoring him once he bumped into Chad.

As usual Chad had come to the roof without making much noise or attracting attention.

"Chad... you're injured." and indeed he was, his forehead was wrapped in bandages, and his right forearm was bandaged. They waited for his explanation, even Suì-Fēng glanced at him to asses the injuries.

"Yeah, the one on my head is from a steel girder that fell on me yesterday, the one on the hand is from a collision with a motorcycle, the rider was hurt badly so I had to carry him to the hospital and that's why I'm late."

Suì-Fēng was surprised but didn't show it, this young man was sturdy and probably strong, if he died he could become very good in Hakuda.

Chad on the other hand didn't think much of Suì-Fēngs presence on the roof. His reasoning was simple, if Ichigo was fine with her being here, he was fine with it too.

"Man, I still don't know what you're made of." Ichigo wasn't surprised, he saw how tough Chad was, and his story was probably true.

Chad put down a birdcage and everyone looked at it, some more interested than others.

"Hello, my name is Shibata Yuuichi, what is your name?" the bird spoke to them, Suì-Fēng and Ichigo were suspicious, as they felt a presence inside the bird.

"Woah, it talks really nicely! My name is Asano Keigo, come on say it."

"Chad, where did you get that thing?" Ichigo asked, trying to keep the serious undertone of his voice as low as possible.

"I got it..." there was a long pause, "...Yesterday." Keigo was the only one to protest at the obviously shortened story. Everyone focused on the bird, trying to make it say stuff.

"Stop worrying, there is certainly a spirit inside it, but it is nothing evil. However, we cannot let it be; we will give it a proper burial this evening." Suì-Fēng always knew how to cheer him up, staying up late and hunting birds.

"Great, I'll be losing even more sleep."

"Stop complaining." over the last few days she had softened a bit towards him, mostly because she figured out that the chances of everything going back to normal for her were slim to none. She would never again get called to a captains meeting, she would never again get to train and scare the hell out of new recruits, no more hunting in squads, no more Omaeda... well she could live without Omaeda. Actually, she would live this life just because, if she ever meets Omaeda again, she would have to kill him... not all was bad in her new life after all.

"Yeah, whatever." he took the juice box from her hand and poked the straw through before giving it back.

'He started worrying about his friends at the first sing of anything supernatural, he seems to be getting himself more and more into being a proper Shinigami.'

"I used to get into a lot of trouble because of my hair color, and one time, when it got really serious, Chad came to help me... No matter how hard you hit him, he doesn't fight." Ichigo in short explained the history he and Chad shared.

"That's unusual."

"Yeah."

A short pause.

"This tastes really nice."

He smiled, she was getting into living as a human.

* * *

"Out of the way!" Karin yelled as she almost ran into Ichigo.

"What's going on?" he knew that there was probably a medical emergency at hand, seeing his sisters dressed in small nurse uniforms.

"There was a big traffic accident at the intersection nearby. We have a lot of people that need help." was Yuzus reply, he would have commented on how nice the uniform looked on her but he was the always-scowling big brother, so that was out of the question.

He heard his dad yelling at someone and went to see if he could help in any way.

"Dad, anything I can do to help?" he asked after Isshin hung up with whoever he was talking to on the phone.

"No, just stay out of the way." Isshin didn't even look at him as he left the room, and Ichigo briefly accepted the fact that he liked his goofy dad just a bit more than this one. He stood to the side, waiting to see if something needed to be done to help.

"Oh, this is a big one, Ichigo, get your ass here, you have work to do!" Isshin yelled from the other room some time later.

Ichigo recognized the 'big one' right away, his two sisters were barely holding up Chad, he was struggling to stay on his feet.

Karin however was focused on the strange bird, she felt a presence inside it, but she also felt something else from it, a memory...

* * *

"Phew, this is a bad wound, you'll have to stay here for a while." Isshin said as he did his best to disinfect the giant paw print on Chads back.

"That isn't necessary, I'm fine." Chad took the birdcage in one hand, and his shirt in the other. He made three steps before collapsing like a tree.

"Told you so..." was Isshins answer to all that. "Alright, let's put him to bed..."

After they placed him in the bed to rest, Ichigo left to his room, Suì-Fēng was already in there, sitting on his bed waiting impatiently. She thought about voicing her impatience, but felt that it would fall on deaf ears so she decided against that.

"Did you feel it?" Ichigo asked seriously, closing the door behind him, the silent agreement was that they would be quiet while in his room; to avoid further incidents with Isshin.

"Yes, once again I felt nothing from the bird, but the wound is definitely from a Hollow."

"Should we give it a burial while Chad is asleep?"

"No, there is something more happening here, we wait to see what it is. My guess is that there is a Hollow chasing the soul inside the bird, we should lure it out first."

"Yeah, that makes some sense, besides, we can keep an eye on Chad if he's close."

"We will have to interrogate him in the morning, he knows more than he lets on." Suì-Fēng remembered the 'story' how Chad got the bird.

* * *

Karin, on the other hand, could not wait for the morning to come, she was wide awake, staring at her ceiling. The memories she got from the bird were not pleasant.

* * *

"Good morning!" Yuzu greeted as her brother came to the kitchen.

Ichigo rubbed his head as he came downstairs, there was another Hollow intervention last night, it wasn't especially late or difficult, but he still lost at least half an hour of sleep because of it. He noticed that there was only one person in the kitchen, Karin was usually up before him.

"Good morning. Where's Karin?"

"She said that she's not hungry, she's feeling sick today."

That was something new, he could clearly see that Yuzu was anxiously waiting to get everything ready for him and dad so that she can go and devote herself fully to Karin before school.

"She's sick? I guess there's a first time for anythi-" he was cut off as Isshin burst into the room.

"Ichigo! Chad-kun disappeared from his room." there wasn't much else that could get Ichigo moving so fast, so early in the morning.

* * *

Ichigo was now running around the place, trying to find out where Chad left; he had split up with Suì-Fēng from the entrance, he would go one way and she would go the other way.

The plan they came up with last night was simple, she would wait for him outside the house and he would bring her in with an excuse that she wanted to talk to Chad about something school-related, they would interrogate him and come up with what needed to be done next.

But Chad was missing, sometime in the night or early morning, while they were sleeping, he left with the bird.

"Anything?" she asked him as they met up on the other side of the block.

"No, nothing, you?" judging by her face, she didn't find a thing either, but he had to ask.

"No, it can't pick up the trail." on the inside she was frowning, her powers were coming back very slowly, but still, it was something. If she was at full power she would probably be able to find him by his reiatsu, if this was a forested area, she would be able to track him easily. Damn concrete, no footprints, no broken foliage, she was helpless when it came to tracking Chad.

"Dammit..." Ichigo then got an idea, it was crazy, but it might work, after all, crazy ideas always work, right?

"Wait, the cockatiel, we can track the spirit inside it!" the idea seemed ludicrous to Suì-Fēng, sure, it could be done, by a few techniques actually; but he didn't know any of them and only the higher ranked officers had the power to actually pull them off.

Before she could voice her protest, he relaxed, closed his eyes and gathered the spiritual energy around him, she looked at him wide-eyed.

"This is..." she recognized what he was doing, it wasn't a really hard concept, but the execution was more than a little tricky; for him to be able to do that on his own was simply mind-boggling. She would have to ask Urahara for more info.

All the spiritual energy in the air condensed into ribbons, Ichigo grabbed one of them and ran, following the source of the ribbon.

"Yes! This way!" his yelling got Suì-Fēng out of her daze and she followed after him, getting her glove ready just in case.

* * *

Chad was sitting against a thin metal wall, he hid in a warehouse somewhere. After he managed to get out of the clinic, he took off and found this abandoned industrial complex nearby.

"Mister, I'm really sorry, this is all my fault. All the people who owned me met misfortune. I'm sorry, I-"

"Don't worry, I don't mind."

"Mister, don't worry about me, you should just leave me."

"I can't do that."

"Mister, please just leave me."

"Don't worry, being sturdy is my only worth anyway."

'Those with power are obligated to be kind...'

Chad saw something move above him, he looked up but didn't see anything strange. But then it moved again, he could barely see a silhouette of something big falling towards him. He jumped forwards, dodging the blow that destroyed a part of the wall.

"It found us." He ran, holding the cage tightly.

"Mister!"

"Don't worry."

Chad ran and jumped through the window that was close by. He needed to hide, but he couldn't just hide anywhere. He needed a place where he could stay without other people getting hurt. There was a park close by, but the path there would take him close to the clinic.

* * *

Ichigo and Suì-Fēng were close to the clinic when they saw Chad. He saw them too, before he turned and ran the other way.

"Dammit! Chad!"

"Icchi-nii..." He turned to see Karin leaning to a wall, dangerously wobbling.

"Karin! What's wrong, you look like you can barely stand!" True to his words, she fell to her knees.

"Karin!" He ran for her, checking her up, having a doctor as a father had a few benefits.

"Kurosaki. Take her home, I'll go after him." Suì-Fēng spoke after seeing him worry over his sister.

"But-" He didn't want to leave his sister, he didn't want to let Chad go, he didn't want to leave Suì-Fēng alone with a Hollow around. He couldn't be everywhere.

"Don't argue! I can't have your concentration breaking in the middle of a fight." She was right, he hated to admit it, but she was right, if he left his sister, he wouldn't be able to think about anything else. He resigned to his duty.

"Suì-Fēng, if you can't handle him, don't try and be a hero, alright?" His voice was serious and showed genuine care.

"Fool, like I would give you the chance to worry over me... now go!" while the emotions in her voice were a lot less obvious, they were there.

Ichigo ran towards his house and Suì-Fēng ran after Chad.

"Karin, how do you feel?" he asked as he ran, still trying to figure out what was wrong with his sister.

"Ichi-nii..."

She was crying, that wasn't supposed to be happening.

"I saw it, I saw the strongest memory from the ghost... I saw it... right in front of him, his mother... his mom was killed right in front of his eyes." He stopped dead in his tracks, being a Shinigami had a tendency of bringing out all the worst memories he had to the surface.

"Please...Ichi-nii, please... save him..."

* * *

'Damn, he's fast, I'm getting slower... this Gigai is too weak...'

'I won't be able to catch up to him, hurry up Kurosaki!'

"You smell really nice..." The voice was deep and unmistakeably from a Hollow. Suì-Fēng stopped right away, looking around frantically, trying to find the source.

"How about letting me have a taste?" it was behind her, whispering in her ear. Why didn't the phone ring?

It opened it's maw and attacked, it was easy for her to roll out of the way, even while in gigai. This Hollow was reckless, it was used to easy meals, it also liked to torture it's victims.

"Oh, you didn't die from one hit? You can see me too... Who are y-" She attacked while it was talking, sending a knee to its' mask, she used her hands to hop over the entire Hollow and land behind it, before it could recover she was already making symbols through the air, and preparing the incantation.

"Disintegrate, you black dog of Rondanini! Look upon yourself with horror and then claw out your own throat! Bakudo #9: Geki!" the symbol she drew in the air appeared and red energy flowed around her, the Hollow was engulfed in the same red energy as it started howling, it was paralyzed.

* * *

"What's that noise?" Chad asked as he heard some strange howl from behind him.

"The girl that was chasing you is being attacked by the thing that was following us."

Chad was now thinking, he rarely had to think in detail, most of his thoughts were simplistic, but now he was broken.

He could continue to run with the bird and maybe even get away. But he had no way of knowing that, since he was clearly dealing with something he couldn't see. He could go back to see what was happening with the transfer student, but he would have to leave the bird here for that.

"You stay here." He decided, he would help her.

Ichigo obviously had faith in her, others were talking about love between the two of them, Orihime seemed a bit down when the two of them were together; but he didn't see any of that, he saw some awkwardness between them, but when Ichigo looked at her, Chad saw it in his eyes, Ichigo was grateful to her. Chad didn't know the details, and he didn't need to know them, if Ichigo owed her a debt, he would do his best to help him pay it.

"Mister, it's dangerous!" he turned to the birdcage and thought about it, that was true, the birdcage wouldn't be safe on the sidewalk, so he put it up on a nearby wall, where it wouldn't get hit by something.

"No, that's not what I meant. Mister! You can't see ghosts, please don't go!" Chad already left, he didn't know about things he couldn't do, he knew what he could do and what he had to do.

* * *

Suì-Fēng frowned slightly, she couldn't properly gauge her own powers so she decided on using a continuous spell (Bakudo #9: Geki) to see how much reiatsu it would drain. She could probably hold it for a while longer but there was no need for that.

She needed to make sure Chad was safe, she also needed to stall the Hollow enough so Ichigo would catch up sooner. She could bind the Hollow and run away, but if she got too far away from it Ichigo would then run into it and he had no way to fight back without her and the glove. She needed to get him a ginkogan, maybe it works on living humans...

So she had to stay with the Hollow, stay alive, conserve her energy if possible, wait for Ichigo and make sure that it doesn't go after the bird and Chad... and finding out why it was chasing the damned bird would be nice too.

She released her spell and jumped back a bit more.

"Bakudo #4: Hainawa!" she skipped the incantation, not wanting to make it too strong, she wanted to be followed after all...

She ran back towards the clinic, this way Ichigo would catch up even sooner, and this mess would be gone. After running a few corners the Hollow caught up and jumped ahead.

"So you're a Shinigami... that's why you smell so tasty, but you're weak. I already ate two of your kind that came to send off that kid..."

Running was no longer an option, but talking to it was a good idea, especially since it seemd to be the talkative type.

"So you have been chasing the spirit inside the cockatiel, why?"

"Let's see, I'll tell you if you let me eat you, hahaha!"

* * *

"Icchi-nii, please, tell him, tell him that he can see his mother on the other side... please Icchi-nii..."

* * *

#1, 2, and so the bells echo, spreading far and wide in the depths of my heart.#

Authors Note:

Still no sign of a beta reader.

I forgot to mention it before,

-In canon, Ichigos sword before he achieves shikai has the guard (tsuba) the same as Rukias sword before she activates Shikai; therefore, same goes for this fanfic, Ichigos sword looks exactly the same as it did in the anime/manga, except the guard (tsuba) which looks like the enlarged version of the one Suì-Fēng has on her sealed sword.

[In canon=giant version of Rukias sword;:;In fanfic=giant version of Suì-Fēngs sword]

I never put in a disclaimer anywhere, so here, I don't own Bleach, Death Note or any other series I manage to squeeze in here... (Yes, there is a Death Note character in the last chapter, or is it the second one? Shibuimaru Takuo is the second guy Light kills, I'm sure you remember him...)

Bakudo #9 is the one Rukia used on Grand Fisher, I wanted to show a few things by using that instead of a failed version of Hado #33 Sokatsui. One, Suì-Fēng has more power left than Rukia had in canon; and that ties into one of the plot changes that will be explained later, maybe even in a few chapters.

4k-4.5k words seems to be the standard length of a chapter/episode for me, I'll try my best to make sure that no chapter falls below 3k. I doubt that I'll be splitting chapters up if they get too long.


	5. Beat the Invisible Enemy!

Beat the Invisible Enemy!

#A legendary star drop, #

* * *

'How many years has it been?' Ichigo wondered as he ran back to meet up with Suì-Fēng, and hopefully, Chad.

'She was a crybaby just like Yuzu, but ever since mom died...' His memories wandered towards their shared past.

'Yuzu tried her best to fill the gap, she cooked, cleaned, took care of us all; Karin wasn't as good at it as Yuzu, so she decided to at least never worry us.' Memories of Yuzu cleaning up, cooking and even cutting their hair came back to him, but Karin was in them too, always standing strong...

'She never cried; she didn't cry when she lost a fight with an older kid, she didn't cry when she kicked the ball too hard and broke the window in the principals office, she didn't cry when she fell and broke her arm.'

'Karin, I'll handle it, don't worry...'

* * *

"Are you really a Shinigami? Why do you stay in that shell?" The Hollow stood opposed to Suì-Fēng, she couldn't rush back to meet up with Ichigo.

She sensed it too late, she was tired from running and his spiritual force wasn't particularly strong either; Chad was quick though, his fist came from the side and impacted with the face of the great beast before she could yell at him to run away. He looked at his fist in bewilderment.

"It connected..." He himself wasn't sure what had happened, he saw the scene and it looked to him like the transfer student was cornered; he could barely see the outline of the Hollow.

'Impossible! He hit it? If he can see ghosts too then-' Her train of thought was interrupted when she saw him punching the air, not even in the direction of the Hollow.

"Maybe not... But how did he...?" she didn't voice the rest of her question, the Hollow was getting up slowly, it already knew that Chad couldn't see him clearly unless it moved quickly. So he looked towards Suì-Fēng. That was a mistake, constant exposure to the reiatsu of a captain, a substitute Shinigami, a Hollow and a trapped spirit made him more aware of spirits, but only slightly.

"A lucky hit, I almost thought you could see m-" He wasn't paying attention to Chad, and he wasn't expecting another fist to his mask. Once again the Hollow flew back from the impact, rolling across the pavement.

Chad took his position between the Hollow and Suì-Fēng; he still couldn't exactly see it, but the marks on the pavement that it left behind were giving him some clues as to where it was. Suì-Fēng on the other hand was slightly surprised, why did he stand in front of her? To protect her? She would normally kill anyone who would try and protect her from danger, but there was something different about Chad.

He of course didn't want to protect her because she was a girl or because she was tired; he protected people because that's what he was there for, that was the reason why he was so tough, so that he could protect people, another reason was Ichigo.

Chad knew how to read Ichigo, not that he did it often, but from what he had gathered so far, Ichigo cared about her more than he was willing to admit.

He couldn't help but wonder about her, Ichigo and the invisible monster somewhere in front of him, but as always, he would follow Ichigo even if the path led him to Hell.

'If he can't see it, he shouldn't be able to hear it either? How can a human like him stand up to a Hollow? Doesn't he know fear?'

The Hollow however was still hearing bells as it got up.

"Damn..." It didn't appreciate the punch, and while the next move might show some weakness on his part, it decided to take flight as it jumped upwards, hovering above the street.

"What now? Now you can't do a thing!" It spit out gleefully, apparently formulating a plan.

"Yasutora!" Chad turned to look at Suì-Fēng, she wasn't panicking, most people would by now start trembling, facing an invisible enemy.

"Run, there's nothing we can do against it while it's flying." her words confused him only slightly; she could see it fully, or at the very least a bit clearer than he could, and she wanted him to run, he didn't retreat, he didn't know how...

"Where is it?" His question was simple, as he walked to the telephone pole.

"What?" He wasn't listening to her, she clearly told him that it was flying, maybe he didn't hear her?

"!" He yelled as he ripped the pole at the base and held it in his hands.

"Where is it?" His question, once repeated, made a lot more sense now for some reason.

"Straight ahead!" The Hollow was flying and that meant that they would never outrun it, it was simply too fast while in the air. However, if it was grounded, that might give them some time.

"Wha-?" the Hollow was still staring at the human, his strength was simply impossible, tearing that pole with his bare hands was crazy, the said pole impacted with his body, bringing him down to the ground, making a small crater.

After seeing the mess Suì-Fēng dared a small smile and yelled at Chad.

"Now, run! There's nothing we can do to him right now!"

"What? Bu-" He never ran, and in this case, he didn't even know where he would run.

"Don't argue, it can't be killed like this!" And now it was her words that made sense to him. If he couldn't rid the world of this monster, what would he do? He would have to run, but then what? He decided to run with her, since she knew more about all this than he did.

So they ran, unfortunately they had to run away from the clinic since the Hollow was getting up and was between them and the clinic, meaning that it would take more time for Ichigo to catch up.

They didn't get too far though, soon after they started running Suì-Fēng noticed small creatures chasing them, they were fast and soon they caught up.

"Yasutora, he has some kinds of minions, they are following us." He grunted in response, quickly looking back to check if they were more visible, sadly for him, they were not.

One of the small creatures spat out a few fleshy objects.

"Move!" She had already grabbed him and pushed him to the side, narrowly dodging the explosion.

"It looks like he can detonate them to explode too." she was coming up with plans to buy time, she could easily bind the Hollow but it wasn't in sight, she might be able to pull off something to get rid of the smaller ones, but she didn't know if there were more of them hiding. Either move would cost her a lot of reiatsu. Hopefully, she could lead the chase into a circle and return to the clinic; or Ichigo could move his lazy ass and catch up already.

Chad on the other hand was thinking about Shibata, he should go back for him and make sure that he stays safe. Like he was reading his mind, the Hollow jumped down in front of them with a few of his minions holding the cage with Shibata behind him.

"Looking for this?" Once again he was gleeful, as if he has just cornered his prey, in a way, he did.

"Shibata..."

"I'm sorry..." Shibata spoke with a familiar sad tone but didn't get far in his apology, the Hollow needed his prey to be still, and once they stopped, he had them in his trap. Now he could have some fun.

"If the guy moves, I'll blow the kid up, as for you... I want you to run!" Suì-Fēng could feel his smile behind the mask.

His psychopatic nature from when he was a human came back to him, oh how he enjoyed the thrill of chasing tiny, helpless women...

"Don't move. He'll destroy the cage if you do..." Suì-Fēng warned Chad, seeing that he was ready to pounce at the blurry object in front.

"Transfer student, what about you?" He noticed that she did move, in fact, she turned around and looked like she was going to run off on her own. He couldn't let that happen, but moving meant harming Shibata.

"He wants a chase, I'll give him one..." she was dead serious (pun intended), there was no fear in her eyes.

"Will you be al-" She cut him off before he could finish. Her face now sporting a scowl very much like the one Ichigo carried , she obviously didn't like to be underestimated or thought of as weak in any way.

"I'll be fine! If Kurosaki comes by just tell him where I went!" Chad looked at her as she left running, he felt the creature move after her. One thought stayed on his mind once everything cleared.

'I could use some answers...'

* * *

Suì-Fēng was running through the empty streets, chased by many smaller creatures. So far she was unharmed, though a lot of it was because of luck, she had spent a few weeks training for urban environments before she left Soul Society. That seemingly unimportant training had probably saved her a few injuries now.

Her luck soon ran out though, she jumped over a few of the explosive leeches but didn't notice that one of them was hiding in a tree above. The damn Hollow was sneaky, she didn't expect this sort of tactic.

She was in mid air and she had no way of dodging the creature completely, so she tried twisting her body since the small minion was aiming at her head.

No leeches hit her on the head, but there were now half-a-dozen of them on her left leg, from thigh to ankle. The Hollow showed it's ugly face as she managed to land clumsily. Apparently it wanted to look her in the face while it detonated the explosives.

It hurt a lot, but she was used to pain, despite her small form, she could still handle more than most male Shinigami. And if looks could kill, the Hollow would have died by now, she was glaring at him, her leg bloody but still in one piece.

"Hehehe, I like how nice blood looks on you, you should wear it more often!" It ended the sentence in a yell, throwing one of its minions at her.

She dodged and started running away again. Pain surging through her every time she used even the smallest of muscles in her wounded leg. It wanted to play with her so the explosions were weak, not much damage was done, she would be able to heal herself as soon as it was over... Now all she needed was Ichigo showing up; yes, that was it, he would show up, she would insult him for being late and he would finish this.

"You know, you can fight back, this is getting a bit tiresome." The Hollow told her, now no longer hiding but freely chasing behind her. Thinking that she was helpless.

She wasn't, while he was talking, she was silently whispering an incantation, as she finished she felt a familiar spiritual signature nearby.

'Perfect, this riverbank is a great place...'

"Bakudo #4 :Hainawa!" It hit directly into the unsuspecting target, binding it in place.

Ichigo came running from behind the Hollow, he couldn't do anything to it right now and when he saw the binding spell tie up his target he smirked.

'This is going to look cool...' Suì-Fēng would say that his entrance was too flashy and loud.

He ran up the Hollows back and jumped towards Suì-Fēng when he reached the top. She already had the glove on and was ready to punch him out of his body. He didn't even touch the ground before she pushed his soul out. That almost turned out to be a bad idea, with Suì-Fēngs wounded leg and his momentum, his now empty and limp body almost brought her to the ground. That would have been awkward.

She held his empty body as he drew his sword and turned to the Hollow. It was now surrounded by small creatures, a lot of them clawing at the binding ropes.

"What was that you said about not making me worry?" He asked with a smirk, he had sarcasm in his voice but he was worried on the inside, that wound on her leg didn't look pretty, his glances weren't noticed by her.

"Shut up..." She should have expected this from him," Those smaller creatures are under his command, they spit leeches that he can detonate with his tongue, he can also fly." as much as she wanted to hit him now, the Hollow was the priority.

"Alright... Will your leg be fine?"

"I don't need your concern." she replied as cold as usual and Ichigo, not thinking it through, tried to joke with her.

"I don't know, with what I'm seeing now, you may actually need someone to take care of you..." if the Hollow hadn't freed himself at this point, Ichigo would have received a knee to his groin. She promised herself to knee him later.

The Hollow was now free of the binds, having called his minions to help him. He didn't attack though, he was slightly confused, this Shinigami knew the woman he was chasing and they seemed like friends.

Ichigo turned to the Hollow, he thought about saying how disgusted he was that the Hollow wanted to chase women, but he decided against it, knowing that Suì-Fēng would not be happy if he said that.

"Suì-Fēng, get my body away from here and heal your wounds, Chad is probably coming here too."

His tone left no room for argument, not that she was about to argue with him. She got ready to move as soon as he attacked.

"I'm your opponent now, Hollow. You'll regret it if you don't fight at your full strength."

"Is that so?" the Hollow was amused, turning his back to this Shinigami was not an option, but he still decided to keep an eye on the girl, just in case...

* * *

"Ichigo!" Chad didn't know what to do, the transfer student was crouching and apparently fixing the gruesome wound on her leg without any medical supplies and Ichigo was lying unconscious next to her.

"Yasutora, good timing, take him and the bird to a safe place and wait."

"Transfer student, what is going on here?" Chad was at his limit, he needed to know what was going on, normally he wouldn't care much in a simple life-death situation, but nothing was normal today.

Suì-Fēng didn't give him an answer, instead, she concentrated more on healing herself.

* * *

Ichigo was running up to the Hollow, the battle so far was mostly repeating itself over and over. He would try and get close to attack, the Hollow would avoid him and buy some space with his bombs.

"You won't be running out of those bombs any time soon are you?"

"Hehehe, of course not..."

Ichigo got serious, he needed to finish this, everyone was safe but Suì-Fēng was hurt and he didn't know how serious it was. He charged again, this time instead of avoiding the bombs he just slashed them and charged through.

The Hollow wasn't expecting a direct attack and it couldn't detonate the bombs in time, but it did have enough time to avoid a fatal wound, Ichigos sword was buried in its shoulder, close to its mask.

"I want to know one thing, are you the one who killed the parents of that kid?"

* * *

"It's all my fault, all I wanted is for mommy to come back, those people got hurt because of me"

"What? Did that Hollow tell you it could bring her back?"

* * *

"Yes, I killed his parents. Back then I was famous, a serial killer, preying on helpless women. She was my last one, and the entire time she was trying to protect her son, it gave me chills!" The Hollow laughed but Ichigo was thinking of his own mother on that rainy day when he got her killed. The memories flooded back and his arm started shaking,

'He's the same, that kid is the same as me, this monster is the same kind of monster as the one that took my own mom away.'

"But then the bad part started, I cornered them on the balcony and the damn kid made me trip, I can't believe I died in such a stupid way. Once I got back I shoved his soul inside the bird." The Hollow liked talking, especially about this story and Ichigo was grateful for that, he wasn't sure if he could fight properly filled with hate like this. But still he kept himself at bay.

"Three months, I told him that if he runs away from me for three full months while looking like that, I would bring his mother back, Hahahahaha!" Ichigo would have asked if it was possible to bring back the dead but the laugh from the Hollow gave him his answer.

"The fun part of all this was killing every single human that tried protecting the boy. And every time I killed one, he would cry and say something like 'I don't want this, please stop'; Ha! And that's where my line comes in, 'Your mommy is waiting for you, do you want to disappoint her and leave her there? Don't you want to see her again?' Hahahaha!"

Ichigo was losing control, one of the main rules when fighting a Hollow was to not let it provoke you into rage but this was too much, no matter how hard he tried his hate for the Hollow was only rising.

"Look at you trembling!" The Hollow pushed away the sword and jumped away. "Your guard is open!" It threw a few bombs towards Ichigo, he ignored them completely and allowed his rage to take over the fight.

"Die!" He was on him in a moment, the large sword coming down towards the mask of the cruel monster. As he made the slash the Hollow screamed.

Behind the Hollow emerged a gigantic gate, it was held closed by chains and Ichigo knew what it was immediately.

"...Gates of Hell..." Suì-Fēng told him about Hell before, but seeing it with his own eyes was a worthy experience.

He watched in awe as the gate opened and all that remained of the Hollow was consumed by hell. The gate closed soon after and with loud cracking noises it disintegrated.

* * *

"It's too late, his chain of fate is completely broken and he can no longer return to his body." Suì-Fēng said as she checked the bird. Shibata looked really sad the whole time, still thinking of his mother.

"We can't bring your mom back here, but we can send you to the other side, if you look hard, you might be able to find her." Ichigo remembered the promise he made to Karin. He needed to keep it, and there is a chance for the kid to be happy in the afterlife.

Suì-Fēng glanced at Ichigo, trying to figure him out a bit more, but failing. During the fight she did come to the conclusion that Ichigo felt it was personal; that was something she would need to investigate. But right now there was a spirit that needed to be sent away.

"That's right, but Souls Society is a really big place, so it will take a while." she was never a big optimist, but in this case she knew the statistics; it was very rare that two family members meet in the afterlife.

This was enough for Shibata, he perked up immediately, he was now eager to leave. He looked towards Chad.

"Mister, thank you for everything, I didn't get hurt because you carried me."

"It was nothing. Yuuichi... if I die and go to the other side, could I carry you around again?"

"Sure!"

Ichigo looked at Chad with a small smile on his face. It was now over, well almost.

"Well, let's go ahead with the Soul Burial then."

* * *

"Ichi-nii, thank you..."

* * *

#inside it there's so many narrow paths etched out.#

* * *

Authors Note:

Disclaimer still stands.

No one has contacted me to be my beta yet...

**Fanking2** asked why Suì-Fēng doesn't mention her rank, there are several reasons;

-The thing is, no one is familiar with the Gotei and therefore her rank means nothing to them, even to Urahara it doesn't make much difference, since he's exiled and no longer a part of the Gotei.

-She already decided that there is no coming back to the Gotei, they would eventually find out about her actions, and she would never be a captain again. Her rank serves to remind her about it and she doesn't think about it much.

-In a way, she feels herself closer to Yoruichi now, and she hates it.

-While she is the kind of a person to use her position to to her advantage, she is not the kind of person to lie about it to others so that she could get what she wants; besides, Ichigo isn't good with authority figures, she figured that out soon after she had met him.

I didn't get a lot of feedback about the scene with Isshin in the second chapter; I'll try and explain why I did it, even though it was kinda 'on the fly' idea.

-In canon, neither Ichigo nor Rukia have shown any romantic interest in each other during the first arc, they are both healthy young adults and there should have been something at least, but there was no sign that they even thought about it; so I decided to use a catalyst, the condom scene, to MAKE Ichigo and Suì-Fēng think about each other in that way at least a bit...

-Since neither are very experienced or good at romantic stuff, skipping all that and throwing in thoughts about intimacy right away seemed fun, and it was, at least for me. :)

_IMPORTANT: **#Minor Spoiler alert#** there will be a team sent for the extraction of Suì-Fēng from the mortal world, I want you, the fans to decide who it will be. I don't want to send Byakuya and Renji to do it, since they obviously requested the duty when it was Rukia in canon. (If you want it though, I suppose I could fit them in)_

_I will NOT be sending: _

_Yamamoto, _

_Omaeda (I have other plans for him), _

_Gin, _

_Aizen, _

_Tousen, _

_Zaraki/Yachiru (too soon for that encounter), _

_Mayuri (I don't want to scar Ichigo for life), _

_keep in mind, Rukia is not yet at the level of being lieutenant and even if she was, she is still just an unseated Shinigami, so she won't be sent, Ikkaku and Yumichika are both lieutenant-level and might come into consideration. There's a poll on my profile if you want to voice your opinion, it's 5 choices max (That doesn't mean that the 5 people you choose are the ones you want to go together, the poll is there for me to see who do you guys want to see go to the mortal world.) f you want you can use either Pms or Reviews to tell me what you want too. _

_Another thing to keep in mind about this is that Yamamoto felt it alright to send a captain and a vice-captain to check up on the unknown Substitute Shinigami who wounded a Menos and took powers from an **unseated** Shinigami. Try and imagine what kind of a shit-fit he'll have if instead of an unseated Kuchiki he has to 'rescue' one of the most loyal **captains** in the history of the Gotei._

Regular reviews and ideas are welcome as always.


	6. Soul of the Blade

Soul of the Blade

* * *

#With time, the ages pass; a shooting star passes without a sound#

* * *

Ichigo wasn't in the greatest of moods. He had to wake up earlier than usual, just to go somewhere with Suì-Fēng. And she wouldn't say where she was taking him. He had to lie to his family that he had to meet someone earlier today and had to leave before breakfast, that was another thing, Yuzu always made a great breakfast. He would have to get something to eat on the way instead.

He and Suì-Fēng were dressed in their school uniforms, she said that it might take a while and that they could be late for the first few classes. Of course, Ichigo was already thinking what would happen because of that, maybe the teacher would call his dad to ask about Ichigo?

Hopefully not, that would be a mess.

He was pulled from his thoughts by Suì-Fēng.

"We're here."

"Urahara shop..." he read the sign, the shop itself stood out greatly, surrounded by tall buildings. Ichigo already guessed that it was a home of some lunatic who liked traditional Japanese stuff.

There were two kids in front, one of them sweeping and the other playing around. When they saw Suì-Fēng the girl bowed and the boy opened the door quickly. Ichigo smirked, Suì-Fēng must have made quite an impression on the kid before, since he was trying to get out of her way quickly.

"Jinta-kun, it's still too early to open... ah, Suì-Fēng-san, you have arrived, I'll go wake up the manager."

The tall man with glasses was wearing what seemed to be a store uniform with an apron over it. He had a rough appearance but seemed like the calm type. Behind him another man emerged, wearing all green with blonde hair covered by a striped bucket hat, he sure seemed like the slightly crazy type Ichigo was expecting.

The blonde yawned and dropped into his geta clogs.

'He's wearing geta? Definitely the crazy type...'

Ichigo kept his face straight but he noticed that Suì-Fēng was showing a lot of hate towards the man, and considering her control he must have done something really bad to piss her off this much. He decided to be a bit more careful around the guy from now on.

"Suì-Fēng-san, what a pleasant surprise, what can I do for you?" He walked a bit closer and pulled a fan out of his coat, covering more of his face.

"I need a gikongan, 4 bottles of Soma fixers and one D-rank fuel rod." Suì-Fēng was obviously rushing through her 'shopping list', Ichigo attributed her eagerness to her fear of hurting the man if she stayed here any longer.

"We just got a new shipment recently, we have all that ready, I assume you need the gikongan for Kurosaki-san?" The green-clad man said, briefly looking in Ichigos direction.

Ichigo had decided before that he would wait and see who he was dealing with before he said anything, but seeing how they already knew him, he threw caution to the wind.

"You know my name, but I have no idea who the hell you are." He crossed his arms in front of him to make a point.

"Ah, my apologies, my name is Urahara Kisuke, I am the owner of this poor candy store. This is my assistant Tsukabishi Tessai, and these two are Jinta Hanakari and Ururu Tsumugiya." Uraharas smile was a happy one, but on him it just looked plain creepy. Tessai, Ururu and Jinta all bowed slightly.

"I'm Kurosaki Ichigo." He left it at that, he had a sinking feeling that this Urahara knew a lot about him, he eyed him carefully.

Urahara snapped his fan shut, noticing how Ichigo was careful around him.

"Now, Tessai-san, I would like you to get one standard gikongan and instruct Kurosaki-san in it's use, after that prepare the rest of the supplies Suì-Fēng-san requested." He turned towards Suì-Fēng, "I would like to talk to you briefly in one of the back rooms, if you don't mind of course."

She narrowed her eyes,

"About what?" her annoyance could clearly be heard, Urahara turned serious.

"About that condition you set..." He turned and Suì-Fēng followed after him, not saying a word.

Tessai bowed again,

"Kurosaki-dono, if you will follow after me."

Ichigo had no choice but to follow, he glanced at the closing door that just hid Suì-Fēng in one of the back rooms.

* * *

Tessai left Ichigo in a room alone for a few minutes to get the package. When he returned he returned with something that looked a lot like a candy dispenser on a tray with two cups of steaming tea.

Ichigo accepted the tea with a simple 'thanks' and eyed the candy dispenser. Tessai took a seat across from him.

"I assume Suì-Fēng-san has used the glove we gave her on you?" He waited for Ichigo who simply nodded in response.

"Good, that means you already have a somewhat clear picture of a relationship between a body and a soul." Ichigo nodded again.

"Now..." He took the candy dispenser and pooped a single candy out from it. "...this is a gikongan, it is an artificial soul that is used by Shinigami. Once it is swallowed the soul inside this candy will take over the body and push out the original soul. Making you able to fight Hollows without the risk of your body ending up in a morgue, or in the worst case, underground."

Ichigo paled, he didn't think of that, once his soul leaves the body, he is clinically dead, and if someone finds him, they would report it. That is not something that would be easy to explain to people.

He swallowed hard and nodded to Tessai to continue.

"The gikon is a simple soul and is mass-produced, so it comes only with some basic instructions already memorized, you will need to program it to follow your instructions in order to avoid raising suspicion." Tessai put the gikongan on the table between them. Ichigo took that as a sign to try it out.

After eyeing it for a few seconds he popped it in his mouth. He immediately felt the strange feeling he always felt when Suì-Fēng would use that red glove on him. He looked around and saw his body twitching a bit before getting up and turning to him.

To say that he was freaked out would be a big understatement; seeing his own body moving around was creepy, but that was expected. What he didn't expect however, was that creepy smile on its own face.

"Urahara gikongan series 4 reporting for duty, sir!" Ichigo was getting even more scared by now. His own body was saluting him.

"Now, if you would both please sit down, we can begin."

* * *

Suì-Fēng was standing on the dirty ground of the training area under the store, looking bored, but on the inside she was wondering,

'How did he build this place in the middle of a city! Bastard has so many tricks up his sleeve...'

"Now, as for what we are here for..." He trailed off, pissing off Suì-Fēng even further.

"You're going to tell me everything." the tone she used was somewhere between a question and an order, he just gave her a smile.

"Oh, I must have forgotten to explain it properly, how silly of me," he shook his head from side to side, chuckling, "we are here because of your second condition."

Suì-Fēng gaped at him, this was not what she planned... the bastard got her again. Urahara walked past her and towards the ladder. While he was next to her, he pushed the tip of his cane through her making her soul fly out of her body.

"You said 'as soon as possible', this is as soon as I could have arranged it all; I'll be back in about half an hour."

She looked at him, still gaping, not being able to decide if she wanted to kill him now or later. Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard someone walking behind her.

It could be only one person, the person she wanted to kill for the last 100 years, the same person that abandoned her, the same person that taught her everything and then left. The only real motherly figure she ever had in her life.

She wanted to run away, to run away and hide, after all these years of chasing after her, she wanted to run away and cry.

She felt her own reiatsu, it was minimal, she doubted that she could use her shikai effectively, she wouldn't be able to use shunpo for too long, she could fire off a few kido spells, but that was it. She was pretty much helpless... unless...

That was it, that was her only chance, she could use her trump card, probably for only a few seconds, but it was better than nothing, she had to make it count.

She was still turned around, not looking at Yoruichi, when she tried to get rid of her haori, mostly out of habit.

She wasn't wearing one, she was in her usual uniform with her back revealed.

Yoruichi was still standing there, not moving from her spot. Suì-Fēng turned around and prepared herself.

Other than her clothes, Yoruichi hasn't changed at all, she still had the same face, and the same figure.

With hands on her hips and a mixture of both happiness and sadness in her eyes, Yoruichi waited for the inevitable attack. She was expecting either Hakuda or Kido, not both at the same time.

* * *

When Urahara entered the room in which Tessai was teaching Ichigo all about artificial souls he was greeted by an amusing sight of two completely identical people in different clothes.

Both Ichigos had the same scowling look on their faces,

"Old man will often attack, whenever that happens, retaliate with enough force to stop his attack but in the worst case only bruised bones are allowed." the 'fake' Ichigo repeated.

"I see everything seems to be going well here." Urahara said, interrupting the two.

"Where's Suì-Fēng?" the real one asked.

"Oh, I left her in the back room, there are some things that she needs to deal with, no need to worry." Ichigo narrowed his eyes at that, not knowing what to do at the moment.

"There really is no need to worry, once we are finished here, we'll go and check on her together." Ichigo was less suspicious by now and decided to just go with it for now. Urahara sat down in the corner of the room and silently watched

They continued with Ichigo explaining his part-time replacement everything about his friends.

Tatsuki was described as tough, hardheaded and the best friend he could wish for. The artificial soul was to act with care around her in order to not drag her into any trouble or get beaten up.

Mizuiro was the innocent-looking womanizer who was a good friend. He was probably the most normal of the group.

Keigo was too enthusiastic and trying too hard to be 'friends', all his suggestions of friendly activities are to be shot down instantly.

Chad was Ichigos best friend and the guy who watched his back. Ichigo explained all about the promise and the base of his friendship with Chad.

Inoue was the clumsy wannabee chef who seemed really shy.

Urahara was intently listening to Ichigos explanations about locations, routines, people and everything else that was said. Tessai was listening as well, sometimes pointing out things that should be said, mostly details Ichigo overlooked.

After almost 20 minutes of Ichigo talking and the soul remembering everything it needs to, they were done. Urahara then stood up and began,

"Kurosaki-san, how much do you know about the zanpakuto?"

* * *

Ichigo was now coming down a very long ladder, above him was Tessai, and under him was Urahara. He had no idea where they were going, Urahara said that it was a training room, but he thought it would be a small room with mats on the floor and racks of wooden weapons in the wall.

Once they climbed down, he was surprised; this really was unexpected. The room was enormous, filled with rocks and had, what seemed like, a fake sky painted on it.

After letting the surprise in Ichigos eyes go away, Urahara started talking,

"Well, this is where we will be training. I hope you like it."

"Where is Suì-Fēng?" Urahara wasn't really surprised at the question, he was expecting it after all.

"She's behind there, however, I would advise against disturbing them..." Ichigo wasn't wasting much time, he almost ran to the edge of the rock that was blocking his view.

What he saw next would stay in his mind for a long time, Suì-Fēng was holding onto a woman and crying into her shoulder. They were sitting on a rock and the woman had her arms around Suì-Fēng protectively while she sobbed into her. They didn't see him despite the fact that he was close enough to hear the sobbing.

He turned and quietly left them to rejoin Urahara.

"Oh, you aren't going to ask her if she's fine?" was all he got once he got back.

"No."

"No?" Urahara was practically trying to drag the answer out of him.

"It seems personal, I don't wanna butt in."

"That's surprisingly mature of you, Kurosaki-san." Urahara had a grin on his face that he tried to hide with his fan.

"Whatever, lets just get this done." Ichigo walked past Urahara to a calm spot where he could in no way intrude on Suì-Fēng.

He had noticed himself getting more relaxed around Urahara, he attributed it to Uraharas careless and goofy attitude about everything. He still decided to keep his guard around the man.

"Now, allow me to demonstrate." Urahara lifted up his cane in his right hand, making it parallel to the ground, he then grabbed it by his left.

Ichigo looked on, he was a bit confused, he thought that he would see a sword not a cane, Urahara pulling out his sword from the cane left Ichigos mouth open.

'He had a sword on him the entire time! Shit... he definitely isn't just a crazy person...'

"See, a fairly normal blade. It's used as a regular sword too, nothing special about it... yet."

"Awaken, Benihime."

Ichigo looked on in awe at the straight blade in Uraharas hand; it was, for the lack of a better word, beautiful. It was ornamented, nothing like the bland cane sword Urahara held before. It felt powerful too.

"And this is one of the abilities it has; Call out Benihime." Urahara said as he pointed the tip of the sword towards the ground in front of his feet, a thick red shield appeared in front of the sword.

After a few seconds the shield disappeared and Urahara sheathed his sword turning it back into its original shape.

"Now that you have seen it, it's time to see what yours can do."

"What do I do?" if someone asked him he would deny it, but he thought Uraharas small demonstration was awesome and it made him a bit apprehensive, hoping that he would be able to do something like that.

"It's simple, meditate. Sit down and place your sword in your lap."

Ichigo did as asked, slightly relieved that it wouldn't be something life-threatening, he had a strange feeling that Urahara would gladly put him in a dangerous situation without a second thought..

"Calm down, clear your mind, find your heart and push it inside your blade." Uraharas voice was calm and quiet, surprisingly calming.

Urahara kept repeating the same thing while Ichigo calmed and got closer to his goal. Slowly Uraharas voice was even more quiet and then it was gone. After a bit of silence Ichigo felt a strange pull on himself, when he opened his eyes he was no longer in the underground training room.

* * *

He was standing on a blue surface but he couldn't see any details of it and couldn't even remember standing up. He looked around and saw the sky in front of him, it looked strange but it was really blurry just as everything else.

Except him, he could see himself just as clear as it was normal for him, everything else in this world was blurred. He turned around to look behind him but couldn't see anything that would tell him anything else. All he saw was that whatever he was standing on was long and that there wasn't a sky behind him, only greyness.

"Look forward." he almost jumped at the sound of the deep voice and turned around again to see the person talking at him.

It seemed to be a man with long hair, dressed in something black and fluttery, he couldn't see anything else since he was blurry as well, he seemed to be standing on thin air.

"Go forward Ichigo."

It was definitely a man, although he still couldn't make out anything else about him. Deciding that there was no imminent danger he walked slowly towards the man; He almost stumbled a few times, not noticing that the surface below him had some sort of steps, although they would repeat in a pattern.

After getting closer he stopped, opening his mouth to speak,

"Never stop Ichigo, it is still too early..." there was sadness in the voice.

Ichigo felt the same pulling sensation and was back at the training room after opening his eyes.

Urahara was no longer alone, Suì-Fēng was now standing a bit behind him looking like nothing happened, although she was displaying visibly less hostility towards Urahara.

"So, how did it go?"

"I have no idea."

* * *

The walk to school was uneventful, Ichigo was curious as to what had happened exactly with Suì-Fēng but didn't want to pry. Suì-Fēng however was acting slightly more human, it wasn't much but she actually looked like she belonged in the human world.

Suì-Fēng was deep in thought. A lot has been resolved in the past few hours, she finally reconciled with her former master who, despite all her protests, wouldn't allow to be called with the formal -sama honorific. Other than that, Yoruichi-_san__, _after they calmed down, returned to her former self. There was teasing about Ichigo, a lot of it, and even some about her losing her never existing crush on Urahara.

Speaking of the blonde, she couldn't find it in herself to hate him as much anymore. She finally understood him a bit better and couldn't blame him, they were framed, it wasn't their fault. She didn't know any more about the subject, Yoruichi was avoiding it.

One of the most 'enlightening' parts of her conversation was the question... oh, the question.

'Do you like him?' Youruichi asked it completely serious, no hint of joking, nothing.

Suì-Fēng just stared at her, at first not knowing what Yoruichi was talking about. She was sure that she didn't like him, he was a human after all, she couldn't like him, right? It wasn't even possible to like him. Yoruichi was surprisingly compliant to her objections and stopped asking about Ichigo...

'How do you like the human world so far?' when the topic changed, Suì-Fēng gladly took it and explained how stuff was strange at first but she managed to adapt fairly quickly.

'Must be because you had such a good guide...' Yoruichi had a huge grin on her face.

Yoruichi kept teasing her about things and before she knew it, everything was back to normal, just like it had been 100 years ago, she didn't care much about the fact that neither would probably ever step inside Soul Society without the Soukyoku waiting for them.

She shook her head, this was no time to think of these things.

They walked into the classroom together during break, getting more than a few glances thrown their way, neither of them seemed to mind.

"Ichigo, where were you? You never skip class just to spend time with someone!" Keigo caught himself before saying something that would embarrass and probably infuriate Ichigo even more.

Ichigo however caught on to his feeble attempts at hiding his true 'worries' and was about to say something, but was interrupted.

"Are you implying something Asano?" Suì-Fēngs voice was cold, very cold and Keigo was gone to his seat before Ichigo could blink, muttering something like, 'no ma'am, sorry ma'am'.

"Suì-Fēng-san, good morning." Suì-Fēng turned to see who was talking to her.

It was Tatsuki, she had a small smile on her lips.

"I was wondering if you would be up for a rematch sometime, it's not easy to find a challenge in this school, you know."

Suì-Fēng contemplated just shooting her down and saying that she had better stuff to do but when she actually thought about it, it wasn't that bad of a suggestion.

"I think I might do that actually, I'm sure Kurosaki would be delighted to come too."

"Wait, what?" Ichigo. who was already taking his second step towards his seat, turned his head around with incredible speed. Suì-Fēng was already glaring at him menacingly. A lonely bead of sweat rolled down his forehead and he gulped, he was sure that he felt some reiatsu rolling off her in waves.

"Yeah, I will..."

The rest of the class went by peacefully, only with glances thrown in Ichigos general direction. He, of course, didn't pay any attention to them even if his friends were the ones mostly throwing them.

Soon, rumors would start around the school about a girl keeping the famous thug, Kurosaki, in line.

* * *

"Remind me why I'm doing this." Ichigo asked as he stretched his shoulders in his loose t-shirt.

Suì-Fēng was acting strange, to anyone else it wouldn't be noticeable, but he spent a lot of time with her so he knew. Whatever happened with that woman made Suì-Fēng... less of a bitch.

"Because all you know is how to swing that oversized sword of yours and brawl. You need to hone your skill, or do you intend on going against me on this?" she replied with a smirk.

'You midget. Wait... is she... teasing me? No, that's not all, she's... having fun. She's actually happy!'

He felt a bit saddened for a moment, seeing how long it took him to figure out Suì-Fēng, but threw it aside, she's happy, nothing else needs to be said.

With a small smile he walked on to the mat.

"Since Arisawa will be late, we'll spar for a while, I need to see how far below me you are exactly." Ichigo was prepared for this, he trained for countless hours against Tatsuki and his dad, though, in the case of his dad it wasn't really training.

"Bring it, shorty." her glare threatened to make a hole in his head but he didn't back down, he doubted that anger would be enough to cloud her mind in a fight but he had to try.

"You'll regret that." her voice was cold, really cold; he managed to hit a sensitive nerve with her.

"Make me regret it." He dropped into a loose stance that would allow him to react to almost anything she could throw at him.

Almost. Because he didn't expect her to jump in the air and kick him in the side of the head. He managed to duck under it but barely; the second kick caught him in the center of his chest, she extended her other foot in the middle of her spin and sprawled him on his back.

She stood triumphantly while he gathered himself off the floor.

"Lucky shot..." he grumbled; he had hoped to last a bit longer.

He got up and went into the same stance as last time, this time he was sure he was prepared for anything.

And he was, a few punches and a few kicks later, he had a smile on his face. A fight with no risk of real injury in it. He hated to admit it, but he enjoyed the thrill it gave him.

Suì-Fēng dropped low and started circling him, throwing kicks and punches all the time, she would jump up to try and catch him off guard, he would soak in any hits she got in.

'He can absorb damage well enough, his height and strength are his advantages in a fight, he is a bit sluggish in his performance, but it's nothing that can't be fixed. He is not very agile, that needs fixing, stretching exercises maybe?' Suì-Fēng thought to herself, analyzing the fight and Ichigos movements during their fight.

Once again she got into a routine, a kick to the ribs, a punch to the gut a few swift kicks and another punch, once Ichigo got used to her routine he could predict her movements and block her attacks, after a bit more time, he placed a few counter attacks to slow her down; she would just change the routine and start over.

This lasted for another 5 minutes and most of the people in the room were now watching them, including Tatsuki, who arrived earlier and saw them sparring.

Ichigo was on the floor, getting up slowly.

"That's enough. Find someone to help you with kendo, I'll be there soon."

Ichigo would have argued but he was tired and wasn't in the mood to anger her further; he did, however, notice that she was tired too, it wasn't much, but it was there.

And just as he had started training kendo with some guy that was trembling at the sight of him, he heard something he didn't like, Suì-Fēngs phone.

He groaned and left the training for later while he walked to Suì-Fēng. They left the gikongan to walk himself home while he ran with Suì-Fēng towards the place where the Hollow appeared.

* * *

#Close your eyes and listen hard, maybe you'll hear a "Goodbye".#

* * *

Authors note:

Thanks you all for making this story my most reviewed story on fanfiction!

45 reviews and more than 6 000 hits!

About the shinigamithat will be sent to the human world, I might have said it in a wrong way; There will not be 5 people sent, you can vote for 5 people maximum, that is just for me to see what you want, it will affect my final decision, but it will still be MY decision.

** music watch** : Ahaha! You didn't expect the Suì-Fēng-Yoruichi encounter this soon, now, did you? :D

Yes, this chapter is quite slow, the next one won't be much better, but after that Grand Fisher is making an appearance!


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